Perspectives and perceptions

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

2011-12-17T10:34:00.001+05:30

Rarely have I gone and seen a movie on the first day of its release. By chance yesterday it was MI4. To give me the benefit of doubt, I haven't seen the previous movies but I'm guessing that shouldn't make my review biased.

On the whole, I felt the movie was a lot of brawn and no brain. And the action was great, but I didn't come out feeling wow. First of all, my expectations were dashed when I booked tickets for an Imax screen, expecting a 3D experience! :P Clearly I didn't read the poster too well. That apart, the movie was fast-paced, kept you hooked, had some punchy dialogues here and there, and around average acting from everyone else. Tom Cruise was good, I mean he was great, but somehow my response was more on the lines of, 'At this age, he's doing this stunts, that's a WOW' Maybe I'm being scathing, maybe I'm being overcritical, maybe you would like it, but I was not so happy.

The underlying plot without revealing much is that Tom Cruise was attempting to infiltrate the Kremlin for some information when it gets bombed. The primary suspect is Tom and his team. His mission (which he chooses to accept) is to convince the russians that he is not the enemy that they think him to be, but is instead an ally trying to show them that there's someone within their system who's trying to set this nuclear war that will eventually end US & Russia. That's all there is to the plot. Then there is interception, fighting, flying, running, driving, and some more fighting, driving, crashing, and some more fighting... you get the plot.

What I loved about movies like the Bourne Identity is that the story isn't black or white, the story isn't all that's depicted, the story is a lot more than that and it's revealed to you in bits and pieces that you fail to connect, only in the end do those stray bits and pieces come together. Here, the audience is completely bought it from the very beginning, they know who's the good guy and the bad guy, they know what the good guy must do, it's too simple, there's no hook. The so called 'Ghost Protocol' had the footage of a mere few seconds. It just wasn't clever enough. That's my problem.

The cinematography, most of the action sequences, and some technically brilliant scenes were great, so it does make for a one-time watch. Doesn't hold any repeat value. There's nothing else left to decipher or understand, everyone got the plot in the first 10 mins.

Oh and did you know Anil Kapoor plays the role of an Indian billionaire in this movie? Please try and ignore him. I just cannot understand how a respectable actor like him would choose to play such a terrible role in the movie. Thankfully the dancers at the Taj were doing a variation of kathak and not some harem-like dance, but seriously, what was his language! We can speak perfectly good English, 'Indian Mens like it hot' What a crap dialogue!! I was damn irritated looking at his portrayal. And even that woman, she was supposed to seduce him and all she did was talk, raise one eyebrow, totally incapable, she then fights him and gets the information they need. If her character was so weak, why not just make her a strong, one-track mind woman who goes in, takes him down and gets the information. Why the farce of her trying to seduce and then giving up... That entire sequence was just a major low in the movie for me.

I'm going with 2/5 for the movie.

Sigh.

What a Chillar Party!

2011-11-19T16:37:00.001+05:30

Sitting at home, watching a great fun movie on a lazy Saturday, what could be better? Perfect life. Today I saw Chillar Party. So many months after it had released and boy what a movie! Absolutely loved it. A fun, light-hearted (though the amount of tears I shed are contrary to that), kiddy movie with a sweet purpose. It was like watching Stanley Ka Dabba only it was a lot more fun. :)

Bunch of kids with nicknames staying together in a colony get introduced to a new kid who's come to wash their parents' cars. Only, this kid has brought man's best friend along with him, bhidu, an amiable stray. The kids whose team is called 'chillar party' begin to view this intrusion as precisely that and proceed to being mean to him. When one of their pranks go a little too far, they feel guilty for their mistakes, and they apologize. After that, the team has a new member, Fatka. Together they play, and they win many battles. Whether the battles were to make the kids realize the value of what they had in so many ways. There was a scene where this kid tells Fatka how he envied his life and how there was no one to yell at him, and Fatka says, yes, but that also means that there wasn't anyone to love him. Similarly, while some kid complained about how he was forced to drink milk each day, there was a perspective of how even if he didn't drink his milk he still didn't have to go to bed hungry. Amidst all these 'lessons' there was also a lot of fun... Especially this one part when all the kids start speaking 'tapori', it was straight out of 'rangeela'... :)

Each of the kids had a very distinct character but this one kid really stood out, "Jhangya" (it took me many attempts to get the spelling right, and to get what his name means, guess that also means that my hindi is really terrible but then again how many of you have heard this term and know what it means? Acc to Google Translate as I was embarrassingly pointed out, it's the second meaning for the term 'underwear', anyways i'm digressing) He had perfect timing and just his complete innocence in his actions was too cute! Like this time when he goes out with some flour in order to create fake dog 'poop', his mom asks him why he was taking the flour and he said it's for a cooking class at school. She asks him to take some veges with him and he looks at her and says 'basic course hain, advanced nahi hain!'

So many beautiful moments in the movie... The playful conversations that they have with Fatka, Bhidu coming and licking them all over... They were a perfect pair. Mangy looking stray and the dirty, rustic looking kid. This one time when they trap Bhidu into a car just to poke fun at Fatka, it was heart-wrenching to see this kid cry at the car's window looking woefully at Bhidu stuck inside... After a few minutes the kids realize their error and release the dog, but those moments when he was inside, the extent of the guilt that they feel almost transcends into you and before you know it, you're crying because you want the dog to be reunited with his owner too..

This other guy, 'Encyclopedia' was the typical geek of the gang who ran all the plans. I loved how they created a campaign to save the dog and he sent out email invites to his friends asking them to support them in a morcha. Thankfully they didn't show him create a 'Causes' campaign on Facebook!

Lots more to write, but I'd rather you go and watch the movie. Also, make sure to sit through the very end of the credits, because just seeing all the kids sleeping during the shooting and their minor squabbles will remind you of the fun'ness' in being a kid all over again. I don't know about you, but this movie made me want to be a mom. Though to be frank, I'd have quite a hard time dealing with a son who's even half the kid that these guys are shown to be like.

:)

Wearing Silver. Thank You!

2011-11-14T21:24:00.001+05:30

This post is written by my dear friend Shri who's graciously allowed me to cross-post it on my blog. Just reading it brought a tear to my eyes, and I don't know why.. maybe it's because life is beautiful if only we opened our eyes and 'saw', not just literally, but like the Na'vi's 'see'...

-------------

Gold is a bubble, Diamonds spell trouble, you continue to get sold and the goblet of wine ads the zip to your soul-petrol. My waistline is 7 above my age-line which is 14 more than the size of my feet; which is in turn equivalent to my birth month; add 2 to it you get 13. 3+1=4 which is inconsequential. In short I completed 25 on the 13th of November 2011.

Salutations to most, greetings to many and thank you all for wishing,greeting, participating, waking up, eating and driving your soul on
this day. Things get complicated from here and I’m not Rahul Gandhi. You start assuring yourself, life, soul, the things you buy, the place you live the air you breathe, the steps you climb and reassure one and all starting with your parents, brothers and sisters, your employers even if fake, the Bachchans you meet and the Rajus you greet. In short, Sting’s song “Every breath you take” gets redefined with every beat. And this time it’s your heart. You’re not able to write the code for the Dream-to-Reality problem when it comes to real estates. You say “after all I wish to buy a house to live” and they say “Living in a dream is easier.”

Lose mental peace by 40%. Diminished hearing power by 20% and you take the same proportion of cynicism when it comes to accepting gifts alongside making a bucket list of your choice. I’m certainly getting nothing, but a copy of Tinkle Comics from my dearest one next year. However I won’t mind it if it’s No. 27 from 1983 when Suppandi was staged in the cradle by Mr. Waeerkar who shares his first name with the second half of my only name. Menus change and so do the restaurants at times. Waiters sway and at times they break into a dance, with blissful grace which overwhelm their fans. Your appetites follow their own trail and do thank your stars if you’re a guy.

You try to tell your father that the pants that you got as a gift for your 14th birthday fit you no more. You continue to tell your friends that 2012 is a myth and 14th November 2012 is not the last Children’s day, on which if your wife delivers a child you will be ridiculed all the way to Christmas.

Thank you for hating me. Thank you for loving me. All these years, thank you for standing by me. I’ve got to go now as I’ve promised someone that “I’ll be there before the next teardrop falls.” With a population of 7 Billion this is going to be a herculean task. I’ve only started my ‘26th’ and they all hope I’ve got miles to go before I sleep.

The ‘Bar’ is now open and let the party begin.

Day 0

2011-08-20T05:51:00.000+05:30

I've decided I'm going to write a blog for every day for the next 30 days. I'm going to be in US for 3 weeks and I'm expecting that to give me enough content to blog about. :)

So here goes:

Finally the day when I am leaving for US. The morning was quite perfect actually, I woke up on time, actually managed to do laundry, get my foreign exchange sorted, reach office, finish and wrap off work in time, go to the parlour, come home, pack, skype, read, get ready, and then come to the airport.

:)

There's this beautiful tranquil kind of song playing in the background... not very elevator style music, but more like the kind of music you'd like listening to perched on a jharokha in a tall tower high up on the hill... the kind of music that makes you smile and breathe more calmly. There's a tiny place in the airport called Khao Galli. Ironically, amidst all this tranquility and silence, you can hear the person make hot doass on the tava with the noises of the batter falling on the hot tava and the banging of the laddle on it... Such typical galli-sounds in the middle of a fancy airport. There's something endearingly indian about chaos.

I'm so anxious or rather restless to get on the flight and go to sleep! I feel like I could sleep for hours and days on end. Last weeked was just unreal. It seemed to go past me in seconds forget hours and definitely not the days that it actually was for.

Well that's all for now. I'm dying to get back to my 'Siege of Mithila' and the blog is going to take secondary priority. At least for now.

Bon Voyage to all you fellow travellers! (Urghh blogger says the word must have a single 'l', I hate this idea of changing my language just because I'm working with a different market now, well, not changing it, at least not on my blog!)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2011-07-10T20:42:00.000+05:30

After the first two movies, I guess I had some high expectations. Big mistake. The second movie was obviously an exception. Sequels never work. (Except when they're in the form of HP or LOTR, except in both those cases, the story was already laid out! So it wasn't so much the director's thought process that made it work, anyways, will try not to digress)

This movie seems like a product of a late night drinking session amongst some buddies, okay let's throw in some autobots that we have, let's bring back megatron, lets throw out megan fox, and replace her with someone, okay now that sam's done with college, we must show some progress, okay let's make him jobless. oh and where are his parents? let's send them on a tour and have them stop by for a drink! Hmm... so what should the story be? Ah, Independence Day was a success years ago, let's try and recreate that!

I mean seriously, what was this movie?! Ideally it doesn't even deserve space on my blog but I'm just so irritated by the mess that's there, I feel compelled to vent! Absolutely no storyline. Nothing. 0. I mean if there could be a negative scale for storyline like something lesser than nothing, I'd give that here. There were way too many people, too many stories which just never got anywhere. For no rhyme or reason there was a scene at a russian nuclear reactor, there was a scene in a ukranian pub, the entire story about this woman's boss being a supporter of decepticons for some vague fatherly reason was never fleshed out, then the agent simmonds comes back to romance the director, one of the captains from the previous movies gets his men to fight this war... the randomness just doesn't end!

The worst part is, because of all these confusing mini-stories running around, there's no meat in the real (so called main) story. The idea of the leader of the autobots bringing cybertron to our planet only to destroy seems very pale. Like there's no real heart in it. It's like this movie was made at gun-point because someone forced them to. Literally like my friend said, the only bearable parts in the movie were when Optimus Prime was around. When it was time for the interval, we were actually staring at each other and wondering why the movie wasn't over yet?! Gosh I can vent so much more, but I think I have better things to do!

Please DON'T watch the movie, it's not even worth the Rs. 100 security deposit we paid for the 3D glasses, because there's no 3D effect in the movie, it's like that movie Clash of the Titans the 3D is absolute nonsense! They should learn from movies like Kung Fu Panda 2 and others to understand why people use 3D!

Black Swan

2011-07-10T20:17:00.000+05:30

My close friend warned me not to see this movie alone, she knew it would get to me in some weird way and I was stupid not to follow her advice. If you have any iota of self-doubt, if you have any streak in you of a perfectionist, don't watch this movie alone. Very few movies manage to leap out of the characters, out of the story and get to you. They grip you like nothing ever has, and they just sort of hurt you for real. This movie does precisely that.

The movie starts in a dream that Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) has. She's playing the white swan. Nina is a ballerina in a dance company. Her mother, a failed ballerina herself, drives her daughter relentlessly in the hopes of having her life her own dreams. Ballet, is a dance form that requires years and years of effort and because of this, it requires not just physical strength from the dancers, but instead immense emotional and mental strength. To be able to stand on your toes might be easy, but to stand all the pressure, the years of practice for that one break in your career isn't.

The story is about Nina, it's about how she's the perfect ballerina for the white swan, who's fragile, pure, and fearful. But that's not all one requires to get the part, she must also embody the character of the black swan, her dark twin. That character is aware of her sexuality, careless and free. The director of the show decides to let go of his primary ballerina who must now retire. He wants to cast someone new and knows that Nina can play the part of the white swan to perfection, it's whether she's able to also play the black swan that's the deciding part. In a close conversation with her, he realizes that she indeed can, it's only a question of whether she allows herself to let go of her control enough to be free in the complete sense of the term.

The tension of playing the part withstanding, Nina must also face backstage rivalry mixed with admiration, in the face of Lily (Mila Kunis). She is the perfect black swan, very aware of her sexuality, playful with men, sensual and original. Through Nina's eyes she sees her as a threat, because she fears that all she wants is her part. Lily surprises her and plays with her mind in a way. She comes to Nina one night, to take her out, to get her to let go of all the controls. Amidst all the drunkenness that follows, we see Nina's attraction to Lily in a devastating strength.

Nina, wants to keep her life away from her mother who she sees as a controlling, pressurizing person in her life. Her mother realizes that slowly playing this part is taking a toll on her daughter, instead of seeking help for her daughter, she tries to merely talk it out of her, leading to a point where Nina is convinced that even she is trying to stop her from playing the part and injures her in order to run to the theatre for her opening night's performance.

She reaches the stage to see the director preparing Lily for the show and tells him that she's here and she's going to play her part. The director senses something in her and lets her play the part. The first act is a disaster, she knows she's falling apart mentally, she can see and is getting affected by the way the people are staring, by Lily's presence and she falls, barely managing to continue her performance.

The brilliance of the movie is in the final 30 mins, when the actual story unravels and how. Her performance in the final two acts is beyond beautiful, it's revealing, it's grand, and it stuns the hell out of you... This movie is awesome, and Natalie Portman deserves every bit of praise and awards for her performance.

Shaitan

2011-06-27T09:17:00.000+05:30

So thanks to some prodding from my friend Shri, I decided to go watch this movie today. I'm not upset I did, but I'm certainly not happy. It was sort of like watching Love, Sex aur Dhokha in a way. Graphic, very close to reality, and loud.

The movie begins with Anurag Kashyap saying that it's a just a movie and that he doesn't support the use of drugs, drinking and driving and that it's a fictional story which is debatable because like Dev D he used an actual incident as one of the pivotal moments in the movie, in this case the moment is when 5 kids high on coke, drinks, and generally on life, speed across town and in one of the turns end up killing two people who were on a scooter. They were driving a Hummer.

Anyways, to come back to the timeline of things, the movie begins by shocking you. I know I've watched a number of movies which involve sequences of kisses in front of my parents / relatives without flinching. But I would not be able to watch this movie with them. There's a lot that goes on in the first five minutes that tells you that you have to have the stomach to see this movie through and that it's going to test you. There's drugs, there's masturbation and a whole lot more which I'd rather not write about.

It revolves around Kalki Koechlin, playing Amrita Jaishankar better known as Amy. She's an emotional and psychological troubled child not able to deal with the fact that her mother died 12 years ago after being put in an mental asylum. In her mind, she still thinks that her mom's alive and that she must go to her. Her rich NRI father has since married another woman who tries hard at being a good stepmother to her but doesn't elicit much of a response from her. In this lost world, she encounters a guy, KC (Karan Chaudhary) who starts chatting with her and invites her over to his place to meet his friends. He's one of the rich dad's son who has lots of money and loves spending it, another friend of their Zubin, a crazy Bawa, Tanya who's reluctant model, and Dash (Dushyant) who's a son of a driver in Dubai but has connections and gets the "maal". One of my favorite dialogues in the movie was, Zubin telling Amy, 'Screw the tigers, save the parsis, we're a dying race!' :) For the first half an hour or so they're setting the context to the story by introducing the characters and so on.

One night, when they're out, drinking and roaming around in the city, they get into a car race with another guy and race him from Worli to town. I think they're at the Horniman circle in the last sequence when they finally lose the trail of the other car and continue going around in circles until suddenly they hit a scooter, killing two people on the spot. Horrified, scared and unsure of what to do, they flee from the scene with Dash taking complete charge of the situation. He drops them off to their homes and goes with KC to a friend's place far away to hide the vehicle. Unfortunately for them, there's someone who's witnessed the crime. One police officer tracks them down the next day and in a 'mandavli' asks them to cough up 25L in exchange for crushing the evidence and thereby the case. Stuck in this fix, they're debating about how to get the money arranged. After going through a series of options, they zero in on the idea of kidnapping a person and asking for ransom. Amy asks them to kidnap herself, justifying that her dad loves her a lot and he's perfectly suited to cough up that kind of money in a short notice. So the plan is rolled, and they take her to a place in Bhendi Bazaar. All five of them are together and Dash makes the call.

Her father on the other hand is dealing with an inspector officially on suspension but asked to take on the case because of his connections and record in solving cases involving missing women. Rajeev Khandelwal, plays the role of Arvind Mathur, the angry, protector of women, cop. There's a side story about his failing marriage but that's very on the fringe. Anyways, so he's co-ordinating the police efforts on this kidnapping and they come to the conclusion that all 4 kids have been kidnapped since all their phones are off and all of them have been missing for a day. Their prime suspect of course is Dash.

Meanwhile, like a domino effect of sorts, one thing after another keeps going wrong with the kids and they land up in even more trouble than before. Raging emotions, getting high on coke, running from place to place, they just end up twisting themselves deeper into the well than they were. Eventually, it takes the unraveling of the truth by the police inspector based on a confession by one of the kids that solves the entire case and restores some sort of peace to the story.

There were a lot of good points to the movie than there were bad, brilliant editing, especially the khoya khoya chand sequence, the aiyashi sequence, and a lot of other chase sequences which are fabulously shot. I think unquestionably, the cinematography, the script in most cases, the editing and the background score are the best parts of the film. The acting is good but not too great. I know all of them have essayed their roles brilliantly, but like someone said, what stands out is not their acting or their role, but the director's vision. Even though this is directed by Bejoy Nambiar, there is a huge influence of Anurag Kashyap on the style of the filming.

One of the main flaws of the movie was that even though it spoke about the inner demons, apart from the inner demonic side of Amy and to an extent that of Mathur, the others didn't really unleash their demonic sides. It was more circumstantial than a different side to their lives. Even though KC has done most of the killing in the movie, it wasn't because of his demonic side... I wish they had explored that idea more in depth rather than using that so superficially and making the events more graphic to gloss over that fact.

Overall though, I liked the movie. I remember cringing and closing my eyes at some points wishing I could close my ears as well. You really need to have the stomach to withstand this movie. But kudos to the director and the producer for making such a bold film. If you can, watch it at least once.

Conversations...

2011-06-24T03:52:00.000+05:30

There are times when you need to hear things from someone else. Someone who has a third perspective about you and about your life. Today was one of those days, nights actually. :)

I learnt a lot of things that I should've known or probably already knew but wasn't accepting or practicing. The thing about life is that it happens, it goes on and we can't afford to stop, second-guess or try and resist it. That's what I've been doing for a while now. Trying to contain myself, trying to avoid getting into things which I'm afraid of, and in a way trying to avoid letting go.

While talking to a friend, he told me, very simply, you could be walking on a street and someone fell on you and you could get hurt, would that stop you from walking? If not, then why would an accident stop you from traveling. Yes, maybe it should act as a reminder to take things slow and to make slightly more logical decisions, but you can't live in fear of a 'what if' scenario. If things are meant to be, they will be no matter what you do and what you don't.

Another thing he said was, when things are going good, you hardly question it, so why do it when things go bad? I realized when was the last time I asked 'Why did I win this prize?' then why should I now ask, 'Why did it happen to me?'

The truth is simple, things happen, and you just have to take them in your stride and walk right on. Learn from the incidents but don't stop living.

There is a thing as your current life, there is a thing as the current situations you're involved in... And the best part, there are things you can control. If you can't control it then what's the point fretting about it and feeling miserable. Okay I have a job in a city that I wasn't born in. Okay I might have some great friends in that city. But I have a great life here too! I have friends who know me and who understand me. I have a fantastic career. I have a beautiful warm home. What more can I ask for? Sure I'd like my boyfriend to live in the city as I am so that I could have my evening dates and midnight drives, but the fact is that he isn't. He isn't even in the same damn country! But that shouldn't be my shield to stop living or to stop having fun. There were things that I liked doing and I should get back to doing them. There were places I wanted to visit and I should get out of my bed on weekends and go and do precisely that!

We spoke about death and one thing that she said stuck with me, all the people who I've known who've died, have done great things in their lives. All the people who've gone have left us with memories, deeds, actions, and lots to remember them by... Makes me realize, there's a lot more for me to do in my life. There's a lot I want to achieve and that's the reason I'm here, breathing, living.

I can't shut myself out. I can't bury myself under excuses. That's not the point. That's not even a way to deal with things. That's just plain silly. And I need to get out of it. I need to get out, let myself go, and do exactly what I want. If it means waking up in the morning and going off with my camera to some place in this city, then that's it. If it means enjoying some awesome sushi at a nearby restaurant, then that's it. And there are a lot of things. There are a lot of places. And most importantly there are friends.

Sometimes you need a wake-up call. And I think sometimes the snooze on those wake-up calls runs out and you finally have to wake up. So here it is. My wake-up call.

:)

And it's a beautiful good morning to me!

P.S. - I know this was an intensely personal post. This is probably one of the first times I've written something so personal on this blog. There's a lot that's left unsaid and would probably not be understood by most. But that's okay. This is me and this is my blog.

The Notebook

2011-05-22T16:59:00.000+05:30

Okay so I've been on a rom-com movie watching spree lately. I have these mood swings in which I can't stand to watch anything non-fictional. I love watching happy endings and feeling all mushy-mushy.

So I had this movie and hadn't seen it till now. I read up some reviews on IMDB and it sounded like my kind of a movie.

The movie transcends through time and is told in a very beautiful fashion. About the lives of two lovers who meet when they were 17-18 and talks about how their lives span out. Allie Hamilton, beautifully essayed by Rachel McAdams, is the only daughter of a millionaire who comes to the town of Seabrook to spend her summer break. Noah, played by Ryan Gosling, is a worker at the local log factory. He happens to see Allie at the carnival night and finds himself immediately attracted to her. He pursues her and finally wins her over by getting her to agree on going out with him. He shows her what it is to be really free, to do things because you want to do them, like dancing in the middle of the streets, staring at the stars, going for a boat ride in the moonlight... He takes her around and before they know it, they're madly in love with each other. Full of passion, full of energy, full of life. He takes her to his ancestral home built in the 17th century at a beautiful location just beside the river. He tells her of his plans to redo the house and she tells him exactly what she wants the house to look like. He promises to build it that way for her...

Then enter her parents. They forbid her to see him for all the reasons like his status, his monetary position, etc... She doesn't listen to them and comes to him while he's waiting outside the room overhearing their conversation. He tells her that maybe he should leave and that maybe they're not meant to be together. They fight and he leaves. The next day her parents take her back to the city. Noah writes to her for a year but those letters never reach her, because her mother always keeps them away and doesn't mention a word about them to her. She becomes busy with her life and meets and falls in love with a man. He's perfect for her, her parents love him and he proposes to her in front of everyone and she's over the moon with it.

Meanwhile, Noah's father sells their house and gives the proceeds to Noah so that he can buy their ancestral home and convert it into a house. Noah works hard at it because he believes that it's the only thing that will bring Allie back. He converts the home into a beautiful white house and his photograph appears in the newspaper. Allie happens to see it, and she feels a pang of emotion that draws her to it. She tells her fiance that she needs some time off to go clear some things and she comes to meet Noah.

Their meeting is just as it should've been. Once they both realize how his letters never reached her, and how she had waited for so many years, they shed all their past, their inhibitions and are together. It is then that she realizes how much she had forgotten and let go... She now has to make a choice of whether she wants to stay with Noah or does she want to go back to her fiance. Ultimately she chooses Noah and they lived happily...

Cut to the present where an old man is reading this to an old woman in an old age home of sorts. By the time he finishes the story, the woman has tears in her eyes and she looks at him and says I remember everything now Noah... He has been reading the story to her everyday to help spend those 5 - 10 mins with her when she remembers who she is, what her past was like and so on. It hurts him to see that after that brief a time, she doesn't remember anything and has to be sedated in order to be put to sleep. The movie ends with a beautiful time in the night when the old man walks across the corridor and comes to her, for once she recognizes him and she asks him whether their love will take them away together, he answers that their love will do anything they ask of it. He lies down beside her, holding hands, and they kiss each other good night... They sleep their way into the heavens...

By the end of the movie, I was sobbing and crying... but filled with the beauty of love.

The thing with such movies is, it hurts to watch them alone at times. Because you know you have someone as wonderful in your life, and you want to go and meet that person, hold on to that person for the longest time, and you can't because you're alone watching the movie... Nevertheless it's a beautiful movie. :)

The King and I

2011-05-22T00:00:00.000+05:30

I'd had this movie for many months and for some reason it never seemed like the right time to watch it. Today, after having a lazy day... It seemed like the right time to watch a musical. What a beautiful movie! I'm kind of disappointed that it was over so soon. For those who haven't seen it, here's what it is all about.

The movie is based on the book by Margaret Landon, Anna and the King of Siam which was later turned into a successful Broadway musical which ran for some 4000+ shows and a movie, which is The King and I. There have been many versions of this movie and I saw the 1956 one with Deborrah Kerr and Yul Brynner.

The movie opens with the arrival of an englishwoman Anna Leonowens (Deborrah Kerr) and her son Louis to the land of Siam, now Thailand in the city of Bangkok. She has been appointed by the king to tutor the royal children in a scientific and secular education in which the tutors before her had failed. She's shown to be a beautiful, strong woman who's not afraid of authority. Her character reminded me a lot of Julie Andrews character in the Sound of Music primarily because the premise was so familiar. A governess appointed to teach the children of the household who eventually falls in love with their father. Well Anna or Mrs. An-n-na as she's called in the movie begins to teach the many children of the king the lessons of geography and songs in english. She was promised a house of her own, but the king went back on his word. She tries many ingenious ways to persuade the king to fulfill his oath, by teaching the kids proverbs about home and their beauty, to teaching and making them recite songs about the love of homes... She is well respected by all the women in the palace, including all the many wives of the king. Seeing the king display all his wives reminded me of what it must've been for the Maharajas of our country in their times. The guides at our ancient forts up north, take pride in talking about the many wives of the kings. She begins to teach not only the kids but also the royal wives.

One of them, is Tuptim, a beautiful woman presented to the king by the prince of Burma. She's educated and knows english. In a ball organized by the king in order to gain favour and a good standing with the Queen Victoria, Tuptim is allowed to stage a theatrical performance of an adaptation of an American novel about the escape of a slave. She uses the performance to explain her stance and runs away when the curtains fall. The theatrical performance was a delight to watch, the costumes, the story line, and most importantly the sound effects combined with the beautiful visual effects that they managed with just silk threads, glittering leaves and colorful cloths is amazing! I absolutely loved the scene in which they showed a thunderstorm and they used silk threads scattered across to signify the rain lashing onto the ground.

After the performance, the king is jealous of how Anna was dancing with an old friend of hers who accompanied the ambassador to the ball. While explaining to the king about the customs in England, she begins to dance and then he asks her to teach him. This is probably once of the most famous scenes in the movie to see the king dance with her. There is a strong attraction that is shown between them and you're sort of hoping that something happens.

Towards the end, we see that the king is not able to punish Tuptim for her mistake of running away because Anna asks him to forgive her and to see for himself how his behavior is Barbarian-like. Faced with this, he shuts himself from everybody and falls terribly ill. Anna decides to leave for England and it is on the evening that she is supposed to set sail when the head wife Lady Tiang comes to her asking her to meet the king who has sent a letter for her. He describes her as a difficult woman more difficult than generality. When she goes to meet the king she is struck by grief at seeing his condition and all the kids who plead for her to stay. The king then instructs his heir to take over and make proclamations fit for a king, and the young king talks about the abolishment of prostration, something which the king says was Anna's doing. It is while the young king is addressing the people, that the king breathes his last.

After watching the movie, I ended up reading about the movie, the reality and the truth is that Anna Leonowens was in fact born in India! She was the daughter of an Anglo-Indian and was born and brought up in India. She married a clerk whom she fell in love with at Poona and then with him she left this country to travel and settle abroad. They had four children, two of which died in infancy and with their two kids they finally went to Australia. After her husband's death, Anna returned to England and it was there that she received the appointment of the King of Siam. She was in Siam for a period of 6 years. The Thai government banned the movies saying that they portrayed the king in very poor light and the entire history was exaggerated. They said that her influence on the king was over-done and that it wasn't the truth. It is true however that after her leaving for England, she and her pupil who went on to become the king used to correspond amicably through mail. He even visited her 30 years later. Her son went back to Siam years later to be a part of the cavalry and established a trading company Loius T Leonowens that is still running business successfully.

Irrespective of what the truth is, the movie is a beautiful treat to watch. Especially because of the beautiful songs that it has. There's a song about 'I whistle when I'm afraid' which reminds me of 'My favorite things' from Sound of Music, and of course the beautiful 'Shall we dance'.

Shall we still be together
With are arms around each other
And shall you be my new romance?
On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen,
Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Shall we Dance?

World Cup 2011 - Our World Cup! :)

2011-04-03T18:10:00.000+05:30

Yes Cricket is a religion in India, and every citizen is a devout follower. Somehow you just can't get away from it. There's no place to run to. Yes maybe you can follow other sports too, but you can't get the cricket out of an Indian. Me included. I wasn't following cricket for the past some years, except some IPL matches here and there. This world cup thanks to our office I managed to follow some matches because the enthusiasm of a hundred odd colleagues is just hard to ignore! :)

I came to Hong Kong the day we played against Pakistan and I had to leave I think when half the innings was over. I came to the airport and was having my dinner while I could hear people shouting in bits and bursts! I kept asking the waiter the score, and since the airport was practically empty, after serving the few people in the restaurant, he'd run to the screen and then come back to tell us the score. And then suddenly there was this huge cheer, and I knew we'd won the semis.

Then I reached HK and last night was the final. We have a lot of friends here and 12-15 of us had booked a place to see the match. One of the regular restaurants we go to had booked another place and they were going to stream the match on the screens in the new place. Though, the streaming wasn't too smooth and it kept breaking. So eventually we left that place and came to another of our regular places, Devils Advocate to sit for the evening. We reached there around 5 and were there staying put till the end of the epic match!

It was an amazing ambience. The entire place was almost filled with Indians and a few people from other nationalities. They seemed to be amused with our cheering and screaming even though at some point I'm sure they were thinking of leaving the place because of our cacophony! :) But man what a game. The tight fielding and the great bowling in the beginning, keeping their run rate restricted to below 5. It was a hell of a lot of pressure there for our men in blue. We were cheering for every ball saved from a boundary, and even cheered for this one time when Gambhir dived to save a boundary but it bounced off his left hand or something... that was just bad luck!

While watching the match, there was a steady flow of drinks and food and what great food. Uhmm... The nachos were to die for!!

But the real game was when the second innings began. In my head I was thinking I hope we don't lose a wicket before we begin to score, I hope we're not 0-1 and then in the second ball there went Sehwag! And I was in my head cursing myself for thinking that thought. At that point I was remembering Rhonda Byrne and thinking to myself think happy thoughts, think winning thoughts. And I was literally forcing myself to think that we'll be 275-5 at the end of 50 overs and we'll create history! And thankfully we got over but with only a loss of 4 wickets!

Our friends were charged up and in the second half, instead of just clapping there was chanting, the kinds we've only heard in India before... Yes, we chanted, "Jeetega Bhai, Jeetega, India Jeetega", we chanted for "Sachin, Sachin, (clap, clap, clap)", and so much more that I can't begin to mention it, but then you get the idea! The thing about these chants is, everyone knows it, everyone is always in sync, so irrespective of which group of people began the chant, everyone joined in! (Although our group was by far the loudest and the best) Eventually there were a few people from other nationalities who also began to chant with us and clapped and cheered as we achieved milestones!

The final 17 runs were too beautiful. Some fours, and then that final six that led us to victory! Ahh... I can almost hear the cheering in my mind right now! What a match and what a team! MS Dhoni led us and did what only one other captain has ever done for India before. And this is amidst the immense pressure that our cricketers have to face in today's day, playing matches after matches, not just for the country, but for IPL, and then the test matches and what not. But well done! Great victory for Tendulkar, a mark of respect for the amazing contribution he's done for our country and our cricket for all these past years. Really like a friend of mine quoted, "He's carried the burden of our nation for 21 years," said the youngster Kohli. "It was time to carry him on our shoulders today." We all know who he's talking about. What a homage to our favorite hero. A 22 year old captures the feelings of a billion Indians!"

Proud to have witnessed this event! Woo Hoo! :D

Invictus

2011-03-21T01:01:00.000+05:30

Yes I'm one of those people who hadn't seen this movie up until today! My roommate gave me the movie to watch just today... and I saw it! What a movie! I've always loved movies which take the base of sports to convey something more than just sportsman spirit... Like one of my all time favorites is Remember the Titans. Another favorite is The Miracle.

This movie brought to light so many things that I wasn't aware about before... It made me go back to Wiki and read up on Nelson Mandela, on the Apartheid, on the struggles, the massacres and the growth of that nation. They've gone through so much in the last two decades, it's amazing!

Morgan Freeman has won my respect and admiration all over again. He's such a perfect actor for almost all roles. But in today's movie he was the best. He fit the bill. He was inspirational. The time when Matt Damon walks into the prison at Robben Island, it was so moving to see the kind of circumstances in which he spent 18 years of his life. The mere thought of a man spending 28 years of his life in prison and then coming back to public life to lead a nation in the most trying times to succeed, it's awe-inspiring...

I liked how his character had been built... The small nuances about his daily life, his conversations with people... the admiration that he won from the staff. His insight into the people's lives. And most of all his vision. The speech he makes in front of the committee which was debating to end the rugby team was crisp and yet in a way warm... I love the line where he says, "Let me lead you"

Matt Damon's household and their interactions with their maid left me thinking about it too... The scene where he brings home four tickets, one ticket for his maid too was really touching... One of Matt Damon's lines in the movie which I really liked was when the reporter asks him, 'How did it feel like to have the support of 63000 South African's?', and he replies, 'We know we had the support of 43 million South Africans...'

The times when they play rugby with the kids... teaching them what it means to play, the rules, the game... and then one of those kids shows up to the final to watch the match listening to the radio playing in the cop's car and the jubilation with which they toss him in the air when they win, it was beautiful...

All in all, it was a great movie, capturing one of the best moments in sporting history and we have Clint Eastwood to thank for it!

Waltz with Bashir

2011-02-26T00:39:00.000+05:30

Today thanks a friend of mine I watched this beautiful animated movie Waltz with Bashir and what an amazingly well made movie. It's set in the times of the Lebanon Civil War and the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Directed by Ari Folman it's actually his true story. The characters in the movie are real people with whom Ari fought in the war. It talks about the post trauma disorder in a way because of the kind of memories that have been left on the characters in Ari's life. Depicted with animations which are more like comic strips and the use of dark colors, the mood of the film is very dark.

It starts with one friend who comes to Ari talking about the nightmares he's been having and how they're related to the kind of things he'd done while being out at war. That sets the ball rolling in Ari's head where he's trying to piece together his role in the massacre, because although he has images of that, he does not recall anything to do with that day. He then travels to meet his friends and co-war veterans to try and understand how the story unfolded in reality. He has conversations with one friend after another, like a documentary film, each friend helping unlock certain episodes in his life. He also talks to a psychologist to understand the psyche behind his dreams and his nightmares. He talks to the journalist Ron Ben-Yishai who was the first journalist to reach the scene of the massacre. Slowly he pieces it together one-by-one and we are exposed to the reality of that day where nearly 3,000 - 5,000 innocent lives were massacred...

The movie ends with the animated part blending into the news footage of the massacre taken after the international journalists were allowed to enter. After reading a bit about the massacre, there was a ruling passed in the UN General Assembly of whether this massacre was genocide or not. It was voted as being genocide however many important nations were abstaining from casting their vote.

Watch this movie if you can.

Charmed

2011-01-26T18:17:00.000+05:30

I must've been in school, maybe 13-14 years old, when I first saw an episode of Charmed. I used to follow it regularly always trying to avoid missing any show. The show was about three sisters, who are actually witches in the modern world and must learn the witchcraft in order to protect innocents by fighting off demons and other evil magical creatures. I think I must've followed the series for about a year and then lost track of it. I kept trying to hunt for it, but to no avail. Until I came to Hyderabad! Why, you might ask? Well because I discovered SurfTheChannel.com thanks to my friend at work, Anaisha. :) And voila! There it was 170 episodes with links to either Megavideo / Tudou to watch them. It took me nearly 7 months to finish these episodes mind you. :) Haha! But I did see them all. Though as the seasons went by there were fewer links available and a lot of times they just didn't stream. I'm planning to buy the complete DVD series, but I think I'll hold off till I can save some money.

But what a series. For those of you who think the plot is stupid. Stop reading now. :) I'm in love with the series, have been and I think always will be.

Beautiful, strong and unique personalities and a whole new meaning to power. Different kinds of powers with a lot of names, different kind of demons that they have to fight off and not in vain! They go through their own problems, rivalry, jealousy, love, cheating, and all these complex emotions while keeping the 'greater good' in mind. I couldn't help but draw parallels between this and Harry Potter and Dumbledore's line of 'greater good'. Although JK Rowling wouldn't approve of their spells because they were rhyming couplets / poems and not roots of Latin words like hers. There is a ton of material about the show, the cast, the episode guides and so on available so I won't bore you with that.

I just loved seeing them progress through the years so quickly. And amazingly they've grown so much as real people during the times of the show as well. Upon researching further, I find out that Alyssa Milano (who played Phoebe) actually dated Brain Krause (who plays Piper's husband, Leo Wyatt)!! :) I found out that Holly Marie Combs (Piper) and Shanen Doherty (Prue) had auditioned for each other's roles originally. Piper has since married the key-grip (person in charge of lighting and rigs on the sets) David Donoho and has had 3 kids with him. Phoebe's become a UNICEF ambassador and her website's really about philanthropy and her work. I loved that in the final season, Phoebe meets Cupid, his name's Coop and he's actually my favorite character from yet another show, Mutant X!

I'm just waiting to save up money to get the triquetra tattoo.

Dhobi Ghaat

2011-01-23T14:11:00.000+05:30

For the first time I had not read about this movie before going to see it, had not searched for it on google, no research on IMDB, nothing. I was as blank, as a canvas. And what a painting the movie left on me when it was over, literally and otherwise. Bombay, my city, my home, has never looked so intense and so deep before. There was the chaos that I've grown up with, but there was this depth that I have failed to appreciate and to recognize. Maybe one of the most beautiful things that has been said about this movie is said by its producer, and actor, Aamir Khan, "The movie is like an artistic painting on celluloid" And that's it. That is how beautiful this movie is. If you're someone who appreciates photography, who loves the play of colors, the confluence of ideas and poetry, this movie will touch you. It's almost like an art film yet not. It's a very different genre of film, and it got under my skin.

I'll attempt to be less vague about it and give you slight hints and a feel of what it was like... bear with me if this sounds poetic or even flowery, the movie makes me feel that way. :)

The movie begins with a very Bombay concept, rains. Just hearing the sound of the rain against the window of a taxi floods you with memories, I could almost smell the rain while hearing that sound. It was perfect! And funnily there is no place else where the rain sounds like that.

There's a mix of video footage in the movie, with some shots shot with a DSLR video quality and the rest in normal digital filmmaking, that change and mix adds to its beauty too.

Four characters, all different personalities, backgrounds and perspectives, are somehow intertwined with each other in a very different manner... Munna - played by Prateik (son of Raj Babbar & Smita Patil) is a dhobi. He does some other odd jobs as well, but inside he wants to be something better, something that the city of dreams should be able to fulfill... Shown to have very subtle character traits, beautiful screenplay, not too many dialogues, but a lot of expressions, gestures, mannerisms. I loved how his portrayal of a slum life is brought out... The way he goes to take a bath in the middle of the night, the cloth which he uses to shield his room as a curtain, the fact that when it rains he must leap on the roof to cover it with a plastic banner... the spaces, the feel of his person... it was all too well done.

Shai - played by Monica Dogra (who is also a singer with her partner in the band Shaa'ir & Func, something I found out after I came back home and googled her) is an investment banker from NY on a sabbatical, and an avid photographer. Jyotika Jain has clicked all the b/w stills that have been shown to have been clicked by Shai and if she has an exhibition near you, go and see it. Amazing clicks, and most likely shot on roll than digital (as explained by a friend of mine). Stunning shots! Shai's character and her journey of understanding Bombay and its people helped by Munna forms a base for their relationship... Though at times her slightly overtly drawly voice was a little fake to absorb and even the mood didn't demand it... but otherwise the portrayal of their time together was again very real.

Arun - played by Aamir Khan is an artist. He's shown to move houses in Bombay, till he comes to stay in this Mohammed Ali Road locality in an old building. The was they transform that home from being in tatters and in ruin, to becoming a warm, artist's home is similar to Wake Up Sid but more mature. It's not as bright as it would be with a woman staying in that house, but it is tastefully done. His paintings in the movie are again simply gorgeous. I wish I could afford to buy one of them for some of the walls in my home....His character is probably one of the least flushed out characters in the movie, very few dialogues, just expressions and actions, His persona is that of someone I would fallen in love with. Slightly old, with little tuffs of white hair, calm, vague, a person who is moved by the feel of things, deep, and restrained...

Yasmin - played by Kriti Malhotra (is also a style consultant for MTV and other channels!) is a woman who used to stay in the flat that Arun has just moved into. She tells her story and her view on Bombay through tapes. A very pretty woman, it is interesting to see the kind of things that she would notice in the city, her outsider's view on Bombay brings a good dimension to the movie... There's this sort of a lingering feeling about her character that makes you think of the thoughts behind her smile even after it's over...

The movie progresses through these four characters and the intermingling of their lives. I think what this movie did extremely well was the blend of the background score with the excellent photographer and sharp editing. It's very different from anything I've seen before, and coming from that city, this movie touched me in a very different way, I don't know how well a job I've done with this review, because I'm not sure if I can emote what I went through, and I don't know if you'll feel for this movie as much as I did. I know that this was more about what I feel and less about the movie, but then again I think my reviews are highly subjective anyway... :) So i loved this movie, and I'm hoping that they come out with the DVD soon, and even better, I'm hoping they release some sort of a book which compiles the stills of this movie because I'm going to buy it, no matter the cost.

Kudos to the entire team, and Kiran Rao for such a brilliant performance. You can choose to watch the trailer of the movie here

Hong the Kong! :P

2011-01-03T17:04:00.000+05:30

So after 3 years of my passport being issued, I finally got a stamp on it. I didn't get a visa (unfortunately) because HK doesn't need a visa if you're staying for < 14 days! Ha! :) Anyways. I had a super awesome trip. 13 days of pure bliss, enjoyment, fun, madness, shopping, traveling, sightseeing, thinking, clicking and all the 'ing's possible.

The city is beautiful. After the first few days I realized that I was clicking all photos in the portrait modes because clicking in landscape mode wouldn't accommodate the tall buildings at all, and ALL buildings are TALL! Really! The roads are spick and span, like my kind of roads, people throw the trash in the dustbins, and in the right dustbins. There is a separate thing on the top for cigarette butts. There are bins at most signals, and on most streets. The traffic signals work and show you when to cross the road, and all people patiently wait and abide. Thanks to this, taxis, cars and buses zoom between signals in the middle of the day at speeds like 70 - 100! This is unheard of on roads in Mumbai where you have to keep an eye out for the people crossing, animals crossing and the silly drivers. People drive and maintain lanes. In fact once a taxi refused to take us because he was in the extreme right lane and couldn't take us (coz we wanted to go left) and another time, we had to suffer the consequences of our poor signal + one-way knowledge and wait till we circled an entire block because we took the cab from the wrong lane!

While the days are beautiful, there's one thing that I missed. Sunlight. There's just no sunlight there! It's almost always overcast, and when it isn't, the sun doesn't reach you because of all the buildings. On my first day I found it strange that no one wore dark glasses, on my third day I knew why. :) It's like being in the Amazon forests (not that I've ever been there, but that's what is written about it, that the sunlight never reaches the floor of the forest). Anyways I began by writing about the days, but it is the nights that are the most beautiful. Have you ever seen how pretty Mumbai looks in the night by the Queen's necklace? Those lights shining in one curved pattern? Can you imagine the entire city being lit up with that simplistic beauty in mind? The city is lit. Always. Buildings are built with the intention of being lit. Patterns, signs, digital ads, seasons greetings, random colors, and just so much more. They've worked hard to make it look beautiful and it just does. When talking a walk in the night, you feel that beauty that one would feel in the moonlight because of these everyday citylights. :) The moon was only visible once when we were at the Peak. I don't remember seeing it otherwise!

It's amazingly tourist friendly. There are signs everywhere. Signs to take buses, trams, MTR (metro), public light buses, etc. Makes you realize how incompetent our cities are. Each bus stop and tram stop showed the routes, pointed to where you were in that route, gave you calculations for your fare, showed you which buses will take you where, etc. etc. Plus this was in English and Cantonese. What more can anyone ask for? Every MTR station had maps, pamphlets, showing you shopping centres, restaurants, banks, grocery shops, etc. etc. It's built for the convenience of locals and visitors. There were visitor help centres at every station, and enough signs for a newbie like me to find my way to another part in the city without the need to make even one phone call!

I loved their system of having a universal card which can be recharged anywhere and you can pay for your bus tickets, MTR tickets, groceries, entry into buildings, and so many other things with it. Another interesting thing was the routing of the MTRs, in Bombay if you have a train from Dadar - Churchgate on one side of the platform, on the other side you'll have a train from Churchgate - Dadar. However, if you want to come from Churchgate till Dadar and then change lines at Dadar, you'll have to run to another platform (some 4 platforms away to get to that line) Conveniently here you don't have to do that. If you need to change lines, then the other line will be on the platform just next to the one you got off at. The return journey platforms for the same line are one below another, not one beside another. Just so convenient!

Plus there were a lot of things to do there. We went to see the horse-races one evening, managed to win 200 HKD too! :P Went to the beach at Lantau island called Cheung Sha beach for the weekend. The water was so cold that we just ended up playing beach football and flying disc. We had awesome barbeque in the night for dinner. The entire process of buying groceries, and then grilling them ourselves and eating it while it's fresh off the bbq was simply awesome! :) Celebrated Xmas in the party street in HK, Lan Kwai Fong also known as LKF. Hundreds of people (tourists + locals) walking through the streets singing carols, just enjoying themselves at pubs and having a ball of a time!

I had the best time at Ocean Park. An amusement park but what a park! Built in an environment friendly manner on a huge expanse of a mountain complete with a Giant Panda habitat, a Giant Panda reserve, Dolphins, Sea Lions, and other mammals. And with some awesome scary rides! :) The park itself was divided in two parts, and to go from one part to the other, kind of like going from the summit to the low levels there were cable cars, and an ocean express train created by none other than Volkswagen (an awesome way to cement their brand in HK). The rides there were amazing. Few but great. :)

Literally all the brands in the world are in that place. Unfortunately they're also equally expensive, so I didn't do any shopping in the stores. Instead I was shopping on the streets. After one day of disastrous bargaining, I think I was remarkably better on the second day. The trick is to be firm and to be confident while bargaining. So difficult when you have to speak in only monosyllables if you want to be understood! :P

Brought in the New Year on a boat with some 25 other friends of friends and had an amazing time dancing, and watching fireworks. At some point in the night I even played some Hindi music and everyone seemed to enjoy it (though I wonder how many of them were conscious of what they were listening!)

All in all, one of the best times in my life. :) Aah. Wish I could make a trip again. Still have Macau, Ngong Ping and the outlying territories to be explored. Anyways, it's always good to keep some things undone, so there's a chance you can go again!

Happy New Year to you and your family! :) Hope you had fun reading about my travels!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Review

2010-11-21T15:21:00.000+05:30

First things first, I have read and re-read all the Harry Potter books ever since they were written and almost know them by-heart! :P I have seen only the first movie of the series and after being terribly disappointed didn't feel the need/urge to go for any other after... There. Now having said this, this movie was really good.

So for starters, I had issues with the book. The 7th book was the most disappointing in which I felt like there was no reason or purpose behind all the killing. Yes, she did tie most (or actually all) loose ends, but it seemed like she did it because she didn't know what else to do. I read that book in about 3 hours and for me the book really needs to grip you, like you shouldn't want to put it down, it should engulf you... but the fact that the book didn't manage to grip me till the last chapter or so when the story actually begins to unravel is pathetic... anyways.

The movie is based on the book (duh!) So I pretty much knew the story well so I'm not about to dwell a lot on that, but instead am going to talk about how the movie was made! :) The director is awesome and so is the cinematographer! Some of the shots were beautiful! Almost like LOTR! :P I loved how they made the movie really dark, gripping, and crisp in a lot of ways. They tied in things very well. Like the point where Hermoine tells Harry about why the Griffindor sword will destroy the Horcrux, she shows him a line which says that the sword will absorb anything that will make it stronger. And since Harry had used that sword on the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, the sword absorbed the Basilisk venom and could hence kill the Horcrux. And I thought that this was something that wasn't there in the book? Am not sure about that one, but it was an interesting way to put things. Then there was this shot when Hermoine is roaming in the forest under the protective spells which she's cast, and then she comes across these Snatchers. Because of the spell she can't be seen by them, and I thought it was really good acting because in spite of the fact that there were facing each other with barely an inch apart, and even though he couldn't see her, he could smell and hear her, so she'd held her breath while he was standing there sniffing... that moment was so beautifully depicted!

One of the best scenes in the movie was the depiction of the story of the deathly hallows when Hermoine was reading it. It was completely done with CG and the creativity was mindblowing! I wish someone made a clip of it and shared it on youtube or something because it was awesome. Very 300 kind of blood splattering, and just amazing graphics!!

As far as the acting goes, it was all about Harry, Ron and Hermoine. But I think Ron and Hermoine did a better job than Harry. For some weird reason I kept thinking that Daniel's proportions are all wrong. In the first scene when these people come to take the Polyjuice potion and become 7 Harry's, when Hermoine and Fleur turn into Harry, it looks odd because it's a boy wearing girl's clothes, but since that point, it just kind of stayed with me, that his head is not proportionate to his body. It's like his head is too big for his body. Something was weird. I don't know what... :P

Emma Watson was really good. Really strong and real portrayal of Hermoine. Rupert (whatever) was great as well. Very convincing. I think like Harry's character in the book, even in the movie, it looked like Harry didn't have a backbone in his spine. I felt the end was too bad though. Yes I know it was meant to be. But even then! :)

All in all definitely a movie you should watch. It would've been better in 3D or at least in like High Definition. Maybe the theatre I went to wasn't great. But I felt the movie video quality could've been better, more crisp, more contrast, more detail.

So go on and have fun!

If Only...

2010-11-08T16:00:00.000+05:30

Last night I was in a movie-watching mood. Having got many movies on my laptop which I've never seen before, I decided to take the plunge and watch this movie. My friend had titled it 'If Only - Revoltingly Romantic', obviously instead of that being a deterrent, it became a reason for me to see the movie.

In the beginning I felt like the movie was going nowhere. But in the second half, as expected, I got terribly emotional and there was this huge void inside me, almost as though I'd lost someone I loved...

The movie speaks about the million things that we experience in our lives everyday. Things we take for granted at times, and people whose love we don't appreciate. I know I'm being overtly simplistic in my perspective and biased because I liked the movie, but to me a movie is a message and that movie definitely conveyed a strong message to me. That of appreciation, acceptance and love. Throughout the movie in the first half, the girl is doing so many things to ensure that the man she loves is taken care of, always prepared. She's boosting his confidence, understanding him at all times, and keeping him as her priority. At this same time, the guy's trying to figure out what he's doing for her, and for their relationship. He feels like he's not doing enough, because he just doesn't seem to understand what it is that he must do. He tells that they'll soldier on in their relationship in spite of the distance... and she breaks down, telling him that there's no point in soldiering on. There's a point only if it's special. Only that makes the entire thing worth it. Like most movies have a philosopher, in this movie, there's a cab driver, one who tells the guy what it is that he must do. He must appreciate. He must listen, he must love. There's no other way to make your partner loved.

Fate gives him another chance, he thinks he's lost her forever, but she is alive in his arms in the morning. He lives the day like he feels he should, buying her spontaneous gifts, taking her out, traveling to a place he's never taken her before, listening to her, loving her... In the end he tells her how she's taught him how to love in this one day, more than he'd ever known in his entire life... He enters into the cab with her, knowing very well that he's not going to come out of this alive, and yet he never falters in his step, and walks straight inside. Death takes him away, and she's left with her own words ringing 'Love doesn't stop with death.'

It was a romantic movie, it was mushy-mushy... but it touched me.

:)

Watch it if you can handle the emotions.

Anjaana Anjaani, Na Jaana Meri Jaani! :P

2010-10-06T11:01:00.001+05:30

Yes a lot of people told me not to go for this movie, but I decided to go anyways! :) So. The movie.

The plot is basically laid out within the first five minutes. Two strangers coincidentally meet at the G.Washington bridge in NY because both of them are about to commit suicide. However, fate has something else in mind. So their repeated attempts to suicide keep failing. They then make a pact to die some 20 days later and during that time they want to fulfill their 'Do before I die list'. I'd say they could've done a LOT more even with this concept in mind. It didn't have to be so superficial and simplistic. He has severed ties with his family, friends and become business-minded. When he loses it all in the stock market crash, he has nothing left to live for and hence decides to die. She was in love with this person for years together, and when she finds out that he cheated on her, she's shattered and hence doesn't want to live. This was too silly for a plot. It's too superficial and it's not a good enough reason to die / kill oneself. It's not even disturbing. The way it's portrayed, you want to think, seriously? Is that why she wanted to die??! I mean that's just stupid!

Anyways, so the story's toast. The acting, only Ranbir saved the day. He was focused and he gave it his best shot I think. Priyanka's character in itself was flawed, very superficial, very hyper, laughing at all times, drinking at all times, and crying if not laughing. I mean there was nothing else for her to do! One thing I couldn't understand, in spite of being such a tear-jerker at times, I didn't even once feel like crying. And I cry at the drop of a hat. So clearly something was wrong!

On the other hand, Priyanka's makeup especially was terrible. Her skin looked cakey, dull and old. Ranbir's skin looked much better! I wonder why they made her look like that! She looked so pretty in Dostana!

The music was the saving grace, though as one friend pointed out, there was too much of it. One song got over and another one started!

I wish they'd done a better job of the movie. It could've been so much better. But anyways, I'm glad at least it had a happy ending and not some morbid romeo-juliet attempt! Though I'm quite disturbed with the portrayal of suicide being an option to evade these stupid issues in life!

Personalization in this Call-Centric World (Part II)

2010-09-27T09:15:00.000+05:30

So the last time I blogged about finding those key, small but your people in establishments, I'd written about this person at my regular printers near Andheri station and this guy who'd helped me out at the Vodafone store. :)

Something similar happened to me recently. In a new city. I shifted to Hyderabad because I got a job with Google! And it felt different to roam around in a city that I didn't know anything about. To meet new people everywhere I went after having gotten used to going to 'usual' places for just about everything, right from your parlour appointments, to your haircuts, to getting xerox, to buying medicines, to buying groceries, to clothes, to drinks, to food, everything... Just made me realize how much of patronising we do in our lives because it just makes our lives simpler and easier to get by... In this new city, I didn't know anyone, and the first people who get to know me and give me some level of preferential treatment because of the loyalty that I showed them are the very people who bring me back home religiously everytime I ask to come back. :) HKB Bus travels.

There's this person there, Ashok. I call him on the office landline, and he recognizes my number. He know which bus I usually take, he helped me get the numbers of their offices in Bombay and Pune. They always manage to get me a ticket, even if I'm booking last minute! There were these two occasions. So whenever V travels, even he books their bus. So that way we've generated quite a bit of loyalty for them. Once when he was traveling, he got chatting with the driver and had a good long conversation with him. Since then, the bus driver recognizes him and thus me. :) One time I'd gone to Pune for the weekend, and then had planned on returning home (to Hyd) on Monday early morning taking the Sunday night bus from Pune. I had a Monday off but had decided on coming back since V had office on Monday and I wanted to chill and relax the whole day at home. But when we reached the bus stop at Pune, I just didn't want to leave... It had been one of those weekends where we spent time together but hardly spoke... And suddenly I was feeling like this wasn't right... So I was a bit low and I was saying that I didn't want to go back. Then the bus came and V decided to be a little more proactive, so he booked a ticket for my return from Bombay and we decided to talk to the bus conductor to see if we could somehow cancel the ticket. I had already paid for the ticket. Anyways, so when I spoke to the conductor he said that nothing could be done this late in the day and all that... the driver recognizing us spoke on my behalf. Said that we were regular travelers and that if I was doing this, it was probably for a good reason. He asked me if I'd booked a ticket for the next day, I said yeah it's HKB. And then the conductor listened to the driver and gave me 2/3rd of my ticket money as refund!! It was unbelievable! :) They usually give 50% back if you cancel 4 hours prior to bus leaving and he gave me 66% at the time of the bus leaving! It was too cool. Of course the next day I traveled back in HKB.

The other time V was supp to go back to Bombay from Hyd and we weren't getting any ticket and I'd got his name written on the waitlist and then as if by magic they got a seat for him to go back on the day of the bus leaving and he didn't have to pay a ransom to head back home. The next time he had to go we had a ticket but he wasn't feeling too well. So we cancelled at the last minute, just 2 hours before the bus had to leave. I was feeling terrible for them. So a day later I went to their office in Hyderabad to pay the full amount for the ticket, and surprisingly they didn't accept the money. They said it's okay, but please don't do that again. We understand it might've been an emergency. The fact that you chose to come all the way here to pay money is more valuable to us than the actual money. And I was stumped to find that people like this even exist!

:)

Step Up 3D!

2010-09-04T00:09:00.000+05:30

Huge amount of expectations from this movie after the amazing success from Step Up 1 and Step Up 2. Personally I enjoyed Step Up 2 more than anything because that whole emotional tension, and the discovering of so many underdogs, that journey was magical and meaningful. I say this because that's what's missing from this movie. A quick overview would be that even though the dancing is amazing (literally some of the moves are out of this world), the movie has no storyline so to speak off, the acting isn't there, the leads aren't strong enough, the movie lacked the punch that the first two movies delivered. It didn't have a soul. In the first two movies dancing was something that brought out a new character within the people which gave them respect, here, it was very superficial.

The plot is quite simple. Two friends who're the core part of a crew, part ways because one of them throws the battle to pay off his gambling debt (kind of like match fixing!). That becomes their basis for rivalry. Then there are two crews, The Samurai's (Bad Guys) and the Pirates (Good Guys). To divert a little, the names of these crews are so common place it's not even funny, I mean the 410 had a good sound to it, a niche, new, unique beat to it. This has nothing like that. The Pirates have Jacob (sort of like a an acting captain) and Luke (the guy in the background who's got these guys together). They are a bunch of great unique dancers, from across the world. The challenge? World Jam Competition. The winning crew gets $100,000. Motive? They need that money to pay off the mortgage of the warehouse in which they've set up their studio (owned by Luke's late parents). The twist? Natalie. Moose has been surprisingly given a lead in this movie, and he's paired with his "best friend" Chamel (she's the foster sister of the lead actor from Step Up 1) :)

Problems: Luke is not a dancer. He's a filmmaker. He records all these people dance, and edits them to make a film. The beauty is that the way he does things is really beautiful. They should've made the movie like that. At least that had some soul in it. But the problem is that since he's not the dancer types, his moves are not fluid. They look forced, choreographed. He barely dances in the movie. So his lead falls pretty much flat.

Natalie's a good dancer. But her style is identical and even her looks for that matter to the lead actress from Step Up 2. So it's kind of disturbing to see a lookalike in the movie. Her acting skills are quite so-so. And she doesn't have the chemistry with Luke. It's just not passionate enough.

Moose is a great dancer. He's done some awesome moves and I think he's done the best job in terms of acting in the movie too. But the problem is that Moose can't be the lead. He can't be the lead actor, or the lead dancer. He's not charismatic enough. And his dialogue delivery is not that strong. The basic problem is that his character was never meant to be a central character which is why it had never been fleshed out enough. So you can't suddenly pluck him out of his character and expect him to carry the movie for you. It doesn't work. Besides his whole pair - "only best friends" with that girl and all is cute but not "aww". But you have to see that dance that both of them do on the streets on some awesome track "I can't dance". It's too cute!! Funnily he kisses that girl in the final scene, and it's almost like no one noticed it! It was not well done at all!

To add to this, so the whole crew and all go through some issues and they almost decide not to participate, blah blah. In the end, almost as though to salvage the story more than the actual scenario in the movie, the crew from Step Up 2 including Kito, Fly, Smile, Monster come and dance and manage to help these guys win the competition. It looked like a last-ditch attempt to save the day (for the movie!) to me.

But the cinematography, the set design, the choreography, most of the music, is great! :)

So all in all, I'm disappointed by the story, the actors, and the movie in general. I wish they'd done a better job! Although if you're a dance person, go and see it for the beauty of the dance!

Just Like That!

2010-08-26T11:23:00.000+05:30

of random things and conversations,
I sit and think and smile,
of close friends, loved ones and relatives,
I miss and muse and write,

i wake up each morning with the rising sun,
I go to sleep with the wind in my hair,
I plan and think and dream about,
loads of things in places in my head,

random words, random thoughts,
have they any meaning?

how does one know what's it about?
if one doesn't have any feelings?

am I a fool I think?
just because i love smiles,
just because I love love,
and just because my love is mine?

these words have no structure,
they have no rhyme...
but they make a weird sort of a sense in my head
and even if they didn't, I really wouldn't worry a dime!

it's been long since I wrote random things,
it's been a while since I just let go,
every now and then I come around,
only to realize that this is who I'm happiest being!

these thoughts do have a source,
a conversation with friends about a place,
a place that has stripped away my inhibitions,
a person that has loved me bare...

the feelings and emotions are indeed endless,
and I realize now I must stop.

abrupt endings are wrong really,
but there never is a good way to stop!

:)

To Plan Or Not To Plan??

2010-08-25T23:24:00.000+05:30

A few of us friends were just talking and discussing about the ways in which we all go about our trips! It's funny, I'm a control freak of a person most of the times, (lying), actually all the time, but thanks to my friends, I've grown to like the unexpectedness and the unplanned mode of all our trips! I've literally reached a point where I don't want to go on a planned trip because that'll be just too boring and too decided... that element of surprise which brings with it the happiness, the joy and the exposure is just too beautiful and as a friend rightly put it, it's liberating! Megha and I tend to plan our days so much, that those few days of just being and just existing and just doing things based on what we feel and what we want feel like we've broken out of some sort of chains and it just automatically calms us down.

Like when we had gone to Goa for the first time. We didn't know what to expect, where to go, nothing. We just got off at an earlier station (Thivim) because someone said it was closer to North Goa. And then we just walked till we caught a bus. Got down, walked around the beach, made a few enquiries, found a decent place, unpacked in the room and then came down and began exploring the space. The whole idea of us coming here with nothing in our heads / hands was just so relaxing. I remember all our subsequent trips to Goa, Alibaug, Kihim, Murud, Pune... all of them unplanned. Just felt like going somewhere, so got on the bike / car and left. Reached the destination, roamed around, made enquiries, found a place, unpacked and left to explore. The exposure that you get from such trips is a lot more I feel. Roaming around roads, not knowing where it could lead, just to go and see what is there on the other side... those are the kind of trips that stay with you.

I know in the future, when we go and visit more expensive locales it'll be tougher to do this because of the implications of costs involved, coupled with the pressure of time and travel, that we might have to end up pre-planning, and pre-booking and so on and so forth. But I guess I can enjoy it while it lasts...

For example this recent trip that I did. I had planned something. I had decided to go spend a weekend with friends and just chill. And then come back home. But then at the end when I completely changed my mind and did something unplanned and risky and different, it was that thing that made me happy in the end! When I look back at my weekend, it's that unplanned journey that's left a mark, and that's made me happy with this silly smile plastered on my face! Unplanned being! :)

Sometimes I think we must just go with the flow. I wonder if I'll ever be able to do that in my life as a general rule though. For now I'm glad that I'm able to do and enjoy holidays like this. Wonder what'll happen if I live my life like this? Will probably lose its novelty factor and make it boring and mundane... :)

I can't wait for my next unplanned move!

:D

It's Birthday Time!

2010-08-06T10:12:00.000+05:30

The weekend's here and I'm turning a year old. Hmm.. Wrong tense. I have turned a year older. Doesn't feel any different though. Feels better in some way. Though last night seemed a bit odd. :P Sitting at home, watching movies, and yapping away to glory with friends at 12 in the night!

I remember how the entire idea of celebrating a birthday used to seem fruitless and pointless to me some years ago, but now I guess I understand and even cherish this idea of celebrating oneself and celebrating time with friends. What I love is that it gives us an opportunity to talk and catch up with friends and that's precisely what happened! I had a great conversation with a friend of mine, Riddhi from Delhi and we spoke about so many things!! For nearly 2 hours and I was like, wow, that's something! It feels great to be loved, appreciated, and wished by so many friends, relatives and people! I'm super thrilled!

In celebration plans, party at home with friends for 2 nights! :) And a cool haircut in the evening! Perfect times up ahead!

So here's a cheers to life! and cheers to being 23! :D

Love Actually?! Not Really!

2010-08-03T22:04:00.000+05:30

I had downloaded this movie from a friend of mine, thinking it's the movie which I now is called 'A Lot Like Love'!! :) Anyways, I watched it... Very basic plot, lots of couples all over the place, primarily in England, but also in France and America. Hugh Grant is the Prime Minister of Britain, and weirdly has no backbone until someone tries to get fresh with one of his personal aides seemingly unaware of his presence!

Liam Neeson is a step-dad grieving for the loss of his wife, but manages to strike a great rapport with his step-son, helping him to win over the love of his life (even though he's just 11!)

And the other stories are just way too boring.

The thing is, a movie should be an experience, it must take you through a journey... It cannot narrate something that you didn't want to watch, or didn't like watching, and expect you to come out of it smiling. Especially for something as romantic as a holiday love movie. It's precisely because of movies like this, that the entire image of "Christmas without someone to love is horrible" is created. Staying in India, frankly I don't know what the hype is all about. But I'm rambling here... My point is, I saw the movie, I smiled a couple of times, and now I really don't even remember why?! In 15 mins, that movie has ceased to make an impact on me after it's over. The time I've spent watching it, is practically a waste! I think a simple theme needs to be simple but interesting. i saw nothing interesting in the Prime Minister's love with a personal aide, nothing interesting in the 'Old Rock-N-Roll star admitting to his life-long agent about how he really likes him' and so on... The only thing that did catch my eye was this scene where this guy who's always been in love with Keira Knightley comes to her on Christmas eve... The video's linked here Even the scene where the singers start dancing, playing music on their wedding day, and also the scene when she actually sees the video he's taken of their wedding and realises that the friend is actually in love with her... that was the only good part in the whole movie!

I wish they'd done a better job of it. I could use some cheering up now.

Inception of an Idea!

2010-07-25T14:57:00.000+05:30

Yes I finally did go and see the much talked about movie. And I didn't say a word. Not a single word during the entire movie, in spite of the fact that I had gone with three good friends of mine. I cringed, I moved, I expressed emotions on my face, but I didn't bat an eyelid! What a movie! What an idea, and what a depiction! Simply superb! I have never come out of a movie with a hangover of thoughts, I have never had a headache because I've thought and concentrated so much... There is imagination, and there's science. This was the actual depiction of scientific imagination. It was sculpted and timed to perfection and everything was in the perfect measures.

Without divulging into details, I'm going to try and simplify the story to what it was. So you have a central character, Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is an extractor. Employed by huge corporates for the ultimate espionage, to steal ideas from the subconscious minds of people. He's given a chance to come back to lead a normal life without the threats of his current life, but for that he must plant an idea into the competitor's brain, at a subconscious level. To do this, he sets up a team of an architect, a chemist, other faithful people who've helped him in the past, and set about to do this planned plantation!

The beauty of it is, like this one line, "What's the most resilient parasite? An Idea. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules" And that is exactly what he does. He creates this whole new world, using facts that we know of and just builds on them as simply as though it were but natural! Never before have we even thought about the things that he's shown, like for e.g. why is that in reality we never actually remember how a dream begins? We just land up somewhere in it? Why is it that in the morning when we put our alarm on snooze, we've actually only slept for a short duration but felt like it was longer? Why do we feel like our dream was real? These are the very basic questions he's used as a base to his story. And he's created a marvel.

From going into the dreams of a person, to going into depths of dreams, building and creating actual cities from imagination and then bringing everyone back to a reality that doesn't seem real anymore. There's this entire scene where he takes an architect into a dream and allows her to imagine and design the dream, and she keeps changing the architecture of what's around her in a rapid, awestriking manner! I especially love this one scene, where she pulls two mirrors in front of each other so that they mirror columns, creating infinity, and then she breaks one of them to walk into that columnar bridge! It's a priceless moment of sheer beauty. My dad would be proud that they used architects to create this sort of a structured building! He's always told me that we create reality from ideas, and that's precisely what he's shown. :)

The screenplay, the delivery, the direction, the cinematography of the movie are just amazingly seamlessly integrated into the movie. This was the first Christopher Nolan movie that I saw, and I'm amazed at the details he's gone into. Rest assured, you will want to see this movie again, to understand it better. You're not going to even check your phone while watching this movie because you're going to be so engrossed in it, that you won't care about anything else in the world! I just hope that Leonardo wins an Oscar for it! Or at least the director does.

It is a must-watch, I'd give it a rating of 10/10. And I actually feel it would've helped had there been subtitles! :D

Of a new life...

2010-07-11T12:33:00.000+05:30

It's soon going to be 2 months of me working in a new job, with a new company, in a new city... Everything's new and yet a lot of things are the same... My relationship, my friendships, and my being.

I was scared. Petrified almost at the thought of having to meet new people everyday and finding those select few people with whom I can be myself again! For nearly a week or two I was floundering in the sea of people... trying hard to keep myself afloat amidst all the chaos, silence and the ironies. Funnily, this is what happens every time! When I started a course last year in a new college, I went through this same phase and ended up finding my own circle, my own space. I know that I have been through this time and again, and yet it never fails to daunt me at first.

Working with Google, staying in Hyderabad was a scary prospect too... I didn't find my circle immediately. I managed to make acquaintances whom I could pass time with... but not share, converse and love... :) And then literally like a divine blessing sent from above, my life began to change... I found friends where I'd thought impossible, I became close, I 'clicked' with so many people... and suddenly before I knew it, I had a circle, I had close friends I could count on and I had a great life!

Looking back now, I realise, I've found myself a home... I know so many people who have moved to different cities and yet have not managed to make that place their new home. They're still bound by everything and everybody they've known previously and have not managed to forge new deep connections. Earlier I used to think that we humans are like a cup, once filled with the right people, we fail to create space for new people. Now I know that's not true... Instead we're like that glass with pebbles, where somehow we manage to find the space to accommodate new people in our lives without losing the sight / importance of the ones that we already know... At the end of the day it's just a question of how many memories have you created with people... How many people do you like spending time with... How many people would you like coming home to... :)

We all change, we all grow... And like most other things, so must our circle of friends. There's no such thing as you can't make friends! There's no such thing as a full cup... there's always space for a little more. We just have to open our hearts and let the love shine through.

I remember what my friend told me, I'm amazed that you always panic at a new situation, a new surrounding, but within some time you manage to conquer every situation and find your own real friends! I love him to death! :) Not giving anyone else a chance to come and change that! :P But yeah... friends... I have my own. Old and New. and I love them all! So here's to them and to friendships, and life!

Rajneeti!

2010-06-06T12:49:00.000+05:30

So yesterday I went for the movie and my oh my was I surprised! :) To finally see a Hindi movie that's been directed so well, it was amazing! Ranbir Kapoor has done such a fantastic job that there are markings of Michael Corleone in his mannerisms. Similar to him, he's back from US for some time and has the innate ability and the acute mind to play the political games... The movie shocks you at times, and manages to make the entire story believable, to a point where I was praying that I never come across a cold-blooded strategist like him in my life! His expressions, his acting is so subtle and is bang on. Katrina wasn't bad herself, except her diction needs to be worked on, especially if she's going to deliver a speech! Unlike the hype, she's not the central character, rather Ranbir, Nana Patekar, Arjun Rampal and Manoj Bajpai form the main characters of the movie. Manoj Bajpai however disappointed me with his performance, I was expecting a lot from him, especially since like my friend pointed out, this was a role he's excellent at playing. Arjun Rampal has again surprised people with his acting and his performance... The movie was really good, the only point that they could've worked on, was the script, had the script been stronger, the movie would've been flawless!

Without divulging too many details, the plot of the story revolves around a family who's heading the nation's strongest party, and the in-fighting and politics within and outside it. A confluence of characters, emotions, murder, love, there's a lot of everything in it. Very subtle elements of reality mixed with some exaggerations lead to a believable, tragic, hard-hitting sort of a storyline.

This is a movie you must watch!

Kites! Yikes! :P

2010-06-01T14:39:00.000+05:30

I may have attended not so many classes of marketing, but I understand the basics. Good advertising and marketing can only take you far, if you have a good product / service to begin with. Kites failed to understand that. The basic error that they made was, they thought the uncommon language barrier was worth the story whereas it was only the fringe benefit of the story, not the salary itself!

The story revolves around the life of Jay (Hrithik Roshan), who does odd jobs to earn his living and if they're not enough, he 'marries' women who want to get a green card for money on a regular basis. His counterpart is Linda, (Barbara Mori) who's come from a poor background herself to make money for her family back home. Coincidentally, he pretends to be in love with Kangana Ranaut, who's Kabir Bedi's daughter. Kabir Bedi by the way is this huge tycoon in Las Vegas and practically controls most of the casinos and the jazz there. Obviously, Linda pretends to be in love with Kangana's brother for the same reasons. Jay and Linda bump into each other at the latter's engagement, when they remember that some months back, they had 'married' each other for securing a green card for Linda. After that, sparks begin to fly, romance blossoms, understanding deepens and eventually just before her wedding to that non-descript brother, passions gain prominence and they realise that they're crazy about each other. Not surprisingly they're caught by the brother, and that begins their chase across cities, towns even countries...

They blow up cars, houses, run in deserts and do all sorts of things which seem unnecessary, pointless and without any backbone. It's almost like the director (not naming Basu, because this doesn't look like his work!) had a checklist of stunts, and activities he needed to insert in the movie! The movie ends like a modern day Romeo and Juliet and you're left wondering, what was the hype about?? Eventually there are very few moments which you take away from the movie, and that too because they were shot beautifully...

The screenplay and script is okay, nothing worth writing home about. In fact, I'm surprised that they call it a Hindi movie, considering it's 90% in either English / Spanish! The cinematography's quite nice though. Hrithik is stunning, he steals the show, and looks beautiful, graceful, sexy and amazing! Barbara is really not worth all the hype, in fact I liked her only in one scene, when she just comes out from a bath... she looked most fresh at that time. In most of the other scenes, she comes across as old, with cakey skin, and very basic acting abilities. I never thought I'll say this, but Aishwarya Rai is much better looking than her, and I say this because Aishwarya and Hrithik have the best on-screen chemistry I've seen in Hindi movies... I'm surprised they took such a sidey guy to be Kangana's brother, almost like they dreamed of his role at the last minute. With Kabir Bedi as the father, and Kangana Ranaut (who by the way does this amazing dance performance with Hrithik, her only moment to shine in the film) as the daughter, that forgettable guy irks you with his non-presence! Kunal Kapoor would've been the ideal choice for that role, but I guess they ran out of money in the end...

All in all, had they worked more on building a stronger story, writing a better script, and been more demanding in the acting from the actors, the movie would've been worth its salt.

Well... It's a huge blow to the Roshan family who were riding high on the success bandwagon for all these years, but I guess a reality check was needed. I just feel sad, because Hrithik's actually a good judge of movies these days! :( So my readers (wherever you are) please avoid watching this movie, unless you want to do it because you like criticising about it! :P

Living in Bombay, in a consumerist world...

2010-05-27T09:24:00.000+05:30

I’ve been born and brought up in Bombay, and I’ve celebrated a lot of birthdays... but the funny thing is that I only remember the gala celebrations from the last few years of my school! When i was 5 – 6, it was so simple, we just brought a cake from the local bakery shop, bought some back presents for all the kids, ate some good home-made snacks along with some local potato wafers in thin paper plates, played musical chairs, and then went home in time for dinner! How different from the scene today!

It’s not just the spending that has gone up, the influence of brands, and products, on our day-to-day lives and on our occasional spending has changed drastically too. Today, even if we think of buying a cake from a local bakery, that bakery invariably turns out to be a Monginis, a Croissants or Ribbons & Balloons, the potato wafers are either Lays, or Uncle Chips, or whichever the latest entrant in the market is, the back presents have assumed enormous proportions and somewhere somehow the sanctity of the celebration is lost...

Growing up to go to college in South Bombay was a relief, and so was staying at Bandra, wondering why? No it wasn’t that I prefer townies, or that I like the hip crowd in Bandra, it was simply the fact that I enjoyed the promenade at Marine Drive, like I enjoyed the ones at Carter Road and Bandstand. At least there were some areas in the city where you could relax with your friends and not have to pay to be seated there.

The explosion of malls, multiplex cinemas, cafes, restaurants, pubs, hookah parlours has opened up an avenue of places for the youth to explore, but it has brought with it the culture of spending. We hear about our parents telling us that we must save and not spend all the money that we either get or earn, but invariably towards the end of the month we’ve done just that. Whether it is buying those irresistible pair of shoes, or spending a huge amount of money on tickets for a movie on a weekend night show, or just going to a fine dining restaurant because you were bored, we have grown used to spending a lot of money comfortably, without guilt.

Sometimes I think, is having less money a crime? Bombay used to make me feel like that. Thankfully I had a home of my own to come back to (even though I came back in the wee hours of the morning some nights!) but imagine attempting to pay rent for a house in the city! Insane!

I studied Advertising and Marketing after graduation to understand what “Branding” and “Marketing” meant... It’s amazing how companies get people to buy their products and services on a simple term like ‘aspiration’. We ‘aspire’ to be in the high society, we want to buy the brands that they buy because that’s become our acceptable standard.

There’s a reason why people who have a middle-class income are usually just stuck in the same segment for years together. We earn a moderate salary but spend like we earn three times that, and hence end up paying a major portion of our earnings towards either loan interest or credit card payments!

All these examples of how our lives have changed are the effects of consumerism in a society. Not all is bad of course. We do have the benefits of getting amazing products and services thanks to the immense competition in almost every segment, whether it is hospitality, airlines, telecom services, and so on. We have so many more options in everything, and they’re growing by the day. Our exposure to everything has changed because of this, thus making us a part of the global community in a much bigger way than ever before!

The key to living with consumerism, like all other advices, is the same: to exercising control over our choices Nothing, and no one can ‘force’ anything upon you. Everything that you do is a choice you’re consciously making. The important thing is to understand that. I remember this one time when I was shopping for shoes, and saw these really beautiful pair of shoes in a shop at Bandra, and I was trying to bargain with the salesman, I told him, “Meri jaan atki hai is mein, please price kam kar di jiye”, he smiled at me very gently and said, “Madam, aap in chhoti cheezon mein apni jaan mat atkaiye, yeh toh aate jaate rehte hain...” and it struck me as to how easily I had fallen into the trap of “I want this NOW” That day I began to learn how to disassociate, and have managed to stay true to my ‘ideas’, though I must confess I’m absolutely in love with this Tommy Hilfiger watch that I saw at a Titan showroom but it was for Rs. 6,000/- and so I’ve told myself that I can’t afford it unless I get an awesome bonus or something at work! ;)

Keep your spirits high! And Enjoy!

Thinking about love...

2010-04-28T12:36:00.000+05:30

This whole mystical word,

that forever teases you,

surrounds you with warmth,

and yet you yearn for the cold,

just so that you feel,

those arms hold you strong...

In moments of joy,

in times of agony,

why does that one person,

become your only solace,

and why can't you ever forgive,

that absence momentarily...

Through the journey of many years,

you feel, you touch, and you know,

but still every time after some time,

the first glance, the first touch,

still makes you shiver...

How is it that most people,

have to prod you so many times,

almost always manage to bug you some times,

fail to evoke those emotions at times,

but you always smile for him at all times...

Bounty Hunter!

2010-04-27T21:48:00.000+05:30

Okay, so i was out on this awesome day + evening + night this sunday... and we had to catch a movie. Wanted to watch 'Date Night' but the timings just didn't work out, so there we were watching 'Bounty Hunter'... :)

Jennifer Aniston in yet another movie proves that she's just not cut out for acting in movies, she was great in Friends, but has not been like that in anything else! Clearly, the director needs to be able to get her to act like the one in Friends did. I think what was missing was, her expressions, she's just too controlled, too straight-faced, and too just 'tight' in everything and you just can't feel for her.

Gerard Butler is okay. Nothing great. He's not even half as good as he was in P.S. - I love you!

The movie's nice. I mean it's not great. You wouldn't miss out on anything if you didn't see it, but it's not like you'll be terribly bored watching it either! There were some really funny moments, especially a point when Jennifer who's Gerard's ex-wife, calls him up and starts crying, and you think 'Shit, this guy's going to fall for it...' and he says, "You know, the benefit of having been married and been in love with you, I know when you're fake-crying!" That point is hilarious! :D

The plot's simple, Jennifer's a reporter and has been called to the court for a minor traffic offense, Gerard's an ex-cop and a current bounty hunter (brings people who've not showed up in court to jail). Jennifer's following the lead of an alleged suicide-suspected murder plot and misses the court appt. So Gerard gets the task of bringing his ex-wife to jail! What follows is a predictable run across cities, gambling, hotel stays, bad driving, etc. etc. etc... till they finally understand each other and the movie ends with a 'happily ever after...'

I know it's not a great plot... but you know sometimes, even a Hollywood movie can be just like that! :)

Clash of the yawn Titans

2010-04-26T13:01:00.000+05:30

Well... This movie was one of the most forgettable movies I've seen in the recent past!

To begin with, the movie starts off like 300, with a narration that's supposed to set the pace and the base to the entire story. But they forget to use things like voice modulation, and most importantly a script?! The narrator mumbles something about the creation of the earth by the Gods, and talks about their love for man... and you just don't get the drift. Then you see a woman who places a kid inside a basket (kind of like Moses) into the sea along with a woman in the same basket. A family adopts the kid and he's raised. Cut to 18-20 years hence, the kid's grown, the family of four are sailing, trying to catch fish for their livelihood.

Suddenly you hear the talk of an uprising, and men fighting with the Gods! It's so far-fetched that you just never understand or believe what's happening. So lightning strikes, the family's boat sinks, and as expected, everyone except that boy die.

Then we go on to the journey of this boy as he finds out that he's actually the son of Zeus, and he's the only one on earth with power to defy and fight against the Gods. He then sets out with a team of warriors to fight Hades (brother of Zeus and shunned into the underworld so that Zeus can enjoy the limelight!) Then they battle against giant scorpions, befriend them, ride them, fight with Medusa (the woman who could kill with her sight) and finally fight with Hades' beast to conquer and save the earth and banish Hades into the underworld yet again. Ohh.. did I mention that in this battle he manages to save the princess? And then walks away from her for a heart-to-heart with his father, Zeus, who in the last scene tells him, that you mustn't be alone, after all you're my son, and manages to bring to life a woman he fell in love with!

It's unbelievable (not-in the good sense), and people like me, who weren't so familiar with greek mythology are absolutely clueless! It seems foolish to think of God being just a few men and women like a council of people, and they being challenged by soldiers. The narration is extremely poor, the 3D is pointless because there are no shots worth the 3D effect, acting is average, script is non-existent, costumes and locations are quite good though, cinematography is okay, but not worth remembering... music / background score forgettable. All in all, you're left wondering, why the hell did they make this movie? Couldn't it have been better planned, scripted, storyboarded, and directed? Why did they settle for something so substandard, in spite of having reputed actors on board?!

Please save yourselves the torture and don't watch it! Rent it if you're sadistic and enjoy torturing yourselves just to be able to criticize. :)

My new love... the thump!

2010-03-30T14:41:00.000+05:30

It's been three years almost since I first sat on a Bullet... and I can still feel the thrill. It's funny how some associations just stick with you for your lifetime, my affair with the Enfield has been exactly that.

I first sat on the Bullet Electra 350 cc, red colour... and I knew this was special. I had never felt like that on a bike before, and the moment I sat I was comfortable. That instinctual connection was fuelled by the connection I shared with the rider! :) And it was magical. To the point where, within a span of a few days, I could only by its sound (from far away) distinguish an Electra, from a Machismo, to a Thunderbird! And to think I had no idea about what bikes were! I only knew what they felt like!

Years later, my fascination continued, I began to judge the rider by the bike he rides, and automatically one who owned / rode an Enfield rose in my expectation and in my eyes... To the point where given a choice I would most certainly place trust in an Enfield rider than any other rider, although I'm well aware that not all of them would be as objective as the bike.

Objective. The one word that defines the bike to me. If I could express it, I find a lot in common with Ayn Rand, Howard Roark and the Enfield. And I'm not being (foolishly) romantic, just thoughtful. Think about it, all bikes have this false, expensive, huge, plastic sort of body to define the shape of the bike, when it's all actually very fake. It doesn't serve any purpose except to "make it look better". The aerodynamics is actually a farce. Compare that to the solid body of an Enfield. :) Some of these power bikes, have you heard their sound?? I mean seriously, I've got nothing against quieter bikes, but please the Yamaha FZ-16, though a very smooth bike, sounds like a Scooty! I can't stand it. If you mean power, you must sound like that. I might be labelled biased, but true bikers would agree, the TVS Apache, has a good sound, full-bodied kind of a strong base sound. It's more like the heavy base in the voice of a matured man sort of a thing... The Enfield doesn't pretend to be anything. You buy it because it is.

The website is a marketing genius of a tool! It's awe-inspiring, it's transparent, it's open and it gives you a glimpse of what it is to own an Enfield. Their branding, and marketing and especially their PR is so good, that you "feel" proud to own an Enfield and you "feel" like you cannot "compare an Enfield with any other bike"

One of my most loved lines, "If you need a reason to ride, you're not on the right bike." So Enfield in its thought!

I can't wait for the day when I'll own one... Till then, my love just continues to bloom! :)

P.S. - The second image is that of 50 Enfield riders on their yearly Himalayan Odyssey trip!

Hum Tum aur Ghost Review!

2010-03-30T11:59:00.000+05:30

There are some movies where you should just choose to leave your head behind and see only the movie. This movie, Hum Tum aur Ghost, is somewhat similar.

The plot is fairly simple, you have Arshad Warsi, playing Armaan, a fashion photographer who's a heavy drinker, assisted by a gorgeous Sandhya Mridul, playing Mini, in love with Dia Mirza, playing Ghehna, who's supposed to be the editor of Cosmopolitan (and is not seen under pressure, is not hyper fashion conscious, or busy at all!). That said, you have an entire entourage of "ghosts" who are following Armaan, because he has the "gift" to see, and hear them.

Similar to the Sixth Sense, each of them have died having something unfinished and need help from him to complete that deed so that they can move on to heaven...

It's interspersed with some comic dialogues, and some great acting esp. by Boman Irani, and Sandhya Mridul. Arshad Warsi fails to evoke the right sentiment of pity, warmth, and affection in you, Dia Mirza really can't act. She just acts hyper, and that's really got no depth. I think she gave her best performance in RHTDM.

The story in the end makes up for the shortcomings in between, the point is, it could've been so much better! Even the comedy part of it could've been more humourous had the screenplay and the script writers paid more attention to detail.

I mean seriously, Dia Mirza being the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine could've delved a little more into her character, you can't just wear a slinky gold dress and be the editor of a fashion magazine, you have to be crazy, busy, neurotic, she was behaving as though she was the daughter of the editor (who also owned the magazine), and had absolutely nothing to do in office but while away time whispering sweet nothings over the phone!

All this said, it's still a better movie for a one-time watch than most of the other movies around!

Ulysses - Lord Alfred Tennyson

2010-03-22T14:44:00.000+05:30

I just saw "Dead Poets Society" yesterday. And I fell in love with Ulysses - the poem written by Lord Alfred Tennyson. Reproducing the entire text here!

:)

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: But every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachos,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port, the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have tol'd and wrought, and thought with me-
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved heaven and earth; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

LSD: Love, Sex aur Dhokha!

2010-03-22T14:15:00.000+05:30

Well, I reached late for this movie and did regret it because it took me the better part of 20 mins to figure out why the movie looked like it did.

It's shocking, gruesome even at some points, daringly different, and just managed to make me squirm in my seat at points.

Technically this film is very different because it's shot completely using weird camera angles... it's made primarily on a handycam, a CCTV camera footage, sting camera videos. It's actually uncomfortable to see the movie because of these angles, jerky hand movements, and brisk cuts.

The film is basically an integration of 3 stories, one each on love, sex and betrayal (dhokha)... the characters are very real, very ordinary, daily life people whom you would meet anywhere. The dialogues are what you would actually hear people talking. The ease with which they abuse, they call names, everything is very realistic. If you're the types who leads a sheltered life in your comfort zone, this is a movie that does make you look at the other side of reality. The brutality of language, and of actions shocked me like none other and at a point in the 1st story, I was cringing and sheilding my eyes from the visuals because I just couldn't take it anymore!

The acting by the actors was quite nice, to the point that you didn't feel they were acting, it felt natural. It was crude, in your face at times, and very straightforward. Bit too blunt for my taste...

On the whole, it's a one-time watch, just for the difference that it brings. As such the story doesn't leave you with many thoughts, except that PDA in the context of today's world takes on a whole new perspective, with the thought of the security guards in a mall enjoying the small moments of intimacy in the supposed privacy and so on... it's freaky to imagine that people could actually sell such footage for money! oh well! it's a crazy world out there!

Karthik Calling Karthik

2010-03-04T11:11:00.000+05:30

After having been completely enamored and in love with the song "Uff Teri Adaa" I couldn't wait to watch the movie finally. The end emotion being, a decent watch, but could've been much better.

The movie begins with a very stereotypical life of a guy (Farhaan) who's just not got anything going for him, from a landlord who's hounding him for money, to a boss who's blaming him for everything that goes wrong, to the hot co-worker (Deepika) who just doesn't know of his existence at all!

The change that comes into his life, is a call, at 5 am each day, by a man who claims to be "Karthik" himself who guides him to becoming the man that he is. And voila, suddenly, the real "Karthik" begins to stand up for himself, asserts himself in front of his boss, and manages to strike conversation (a rather witty one) with Deepika too! Sitting in the audience, you literally feel like whistling and hooting when you see him walk down the corridor of his office with that confidence and poise!

This is followed by a courtship period where he manages to woo Deepika, and then a little 'Wake Up Sid' style home decoration, followed by some casual, yet well etched scenes and dialogues complete the entire courtship.

All that goes well, must encounter a twist, and the twist is that the caller gets enraged due to some reason, and then he is determined to bring the real "Karthik's" life crashing down. So gone is his relationship, his job and everything...

Karthik is then forced to resort to tactics to run away and stay safe...

The end is quite captivating and does help in solving all those points of conflict that you've been nursing since the start... but somehow it doesn't comfort you, because some things just don't unravel cleanly enough. Sure it speaks of a psychological disorder, but it doesn't manage to give you that "Ahhh-haa" moment when it all clicks...

The cinematography is quite brilliant, and Deepika's costumes, make-up and hair are worth watching for, she looks really great. Although I'm still disappointed with her english accent, it just doesn't flow naturally enough. The house that they decorate is done very brilliantly, and especially the lighting is perfect for those intimate moments of romance...

To conclude, the movie is worth a one-time watch, but it leaves you wishing it was better.

Job Hunt

2010-02-23T10:19:00.000+05:30

For all these months, while i was studying, the natural progression of the course is such that you expect to end the course with a clear idea of what you want to do next. After a lot of confusion and back and forth of ideas, visions, etc. i now think that i do know what i want. while i was writing my resume, i realised that these were the kind of roles that i'd like to be doing... i remembered my friend rakshit, who told me, the best way to think about all this, is to imagine yourself years down the line and imagine what would you like your visiting card to look like, what designation are you seeing yourself in... and it does work actually... :)

well, the resume's ready. the cover letter's just getting ready. and then zoooom! off it goes to the company and hopefully pat comes the invitation!

keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that it all falls into place!

My Name Is Khan - why?!

2010-02-22T20:39:00.000+05:30

For days i've been thinking about what i should blog on... and then my friend took me and some of my college friends for this movie at sterling (yes we paid rs. 150 per ticket, which reminds me i need to pay her back...) so anyways we go. after the awesome reviews given by ALL the people, expectations are running high...

the story is quite simple, srk is autistic and was raised by a very sensible, level-headed mother, whose acting is amazing btw... being autistic did not in any way hamper his intelligence and thus, he grew up to be quite an intelligent guy, just different. in her efforts to appreciate his smaller victories, she ends up neglecting the younger son, (essayed by jimmy shergill) and he ends up feeling left out and resented. he grows up and goes to the US and then starts the process to invite her and srk to the US. just when they're weeks away from immigrating, she dies. thus srk flies alone to the US. joins his brother's company and starts working there.

during his process of working he meets kajol and falls in love with her. she has a 10 year old son from her previous marriage. but in the course of some time, she falls in love with srk and his ways too. so they marry and are living the 'happy family' life... until 9/11. there's a good dialogue, he narrates, "the lives of people were earlier divided into two ages, BC and AD, now there's a third division, 9/11" which is so true... and then the usual strife which led to the people creating rifts against muslims, and sikhs across US. during one of these rifts, her son gets killed... kajol blames srk, and herself for having married him and brought this on to their lives. and in her fit of anger, she tells him, "why don't you go to the president of united states and tell him, that you're a muslim and you're not a terrorist"

struck by those words, that becomes his mission, and he sets off on the journey to meet the american president. this journey (part of which resembles forrest gump) takes him through hurricane tormented people, becoming a part of the news-making top stories of times, becoming a source of inspiration for muslims across the world, spreading messages about the cause of autism, and so many other things.... till he reaches the end and actually says these words to the president and returns to spending his life with kajol.... who by then forgives him...

there were some funny moments, not where you'd roll off your chair with laughter, but just to sort of evoke a small laugh, some smart dialogues, but overall, the story was quite weak... it didn't have enough meat in it to carry the weight. and like a friend of mine pointed out, it didn't make you cry. it attempted hard to do so... but it doesn't move you. although i admit i cried! :D but that i do in most movies!!

srk has done a good job. not as good as chak de. but quite good. i thought his movements and expressions were well portrayed but could've been deeper. it's like the performance that rani mukherjee delivered in 'black' where she completely amazes you with her prowess, this was like 10% of that. srk needs a strong director to bring out that level of skill on the camera. i think with karan it sort of becomes this "this is good enough" but with someone like a task-master, i think he has the potential to churn out much more emotion and expression. there were moments when i was half expecting him to stop that acting and behave like himself... which is sad. because rani mukherjee was never herself in that movie, neither was konkana sen sharma (in 15 park avenue)...

kajol was atrocious. there's no other word for her performance. she tried so hard to be this cool mom, this remake of kabhi khushi kabhi gham performance and she failed miserably! in that movie she was consistently at that role and she did it well, the character was irritating and she played it to the "t" but here, she was half of that, half of what she was in like those dreamy roles, and then going hysterical and quiet in the wake of her son's death. not well done at all!

there's actually nothing more to talk about.

hmm... so all in all, if you haven't seen it, you really don't need to. :)

Holidays are here!!

2009-12-24T08:54:00.000+05:30

Never before has a Christmas break meant so much to me,

Never before have I felt the Xmas cheer!

Oh! To have 10 days off feels like happiness is here!

I'm so happy and so thrilled I can't think straight!

I've got work, and no time but it cannot make me sad...

I'm still happy as a jaybird and I feel like a song...

I want to sing...

"All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air.
With one enormous chair,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?

Lots of choc'lates for me to eat,
Lots of coal makin' lots of 'eat.
Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet,

Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?

Aow, so loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still.
I would never budge 'till spring
Crept over me windowsill.
Someone's 'ead restin' on my knee,
Warm an' tender as 'e can be. 'ho takes good care of me,
Aow, wouldn't it be loverly?
Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly"

Happy happy me!

Happy holidays to you!

Changing with Beauty

2009-12-12T15:56:00.000+05:30

Beauty, as a term, has mystified thinkers, philosophers and the common man since time immemorial. Many have attempted at defining this term, some have linked it to the physical appeal of a woman, while others have attempted to give it a deeper sense. Beauty, isn’t about a person, an object, or about anything specific at all. Instead, beauty is that which makes you smile.

The reason we keep coming back to the idea, is because it is soothing to our senses. Beauty brings back the proportions to the chaos, it helps us make sense of that which doesn’t, it brings order to the haphazard.

Have you ever stood amidst a bustling market to look at the laughter on the face of a child? Wondered why you felt that instinct to stand and watch? Did you notice the smile that crept on your face? That’s what beauty can do to a person.

The art movements across the centuries have gone through many styles, from the classical to the modern, from baroque to bauhaus, there has been a transition in the styles every some decades. This has transformed the perceptions of excellence time and again.

Today, our world is changing, and change it must, if it has to survive in this day and age. We are undergoing major shifts in the way we use the materials to construct our structures, the designs that are approved have to pass through several layers of scrutiny for sustainability in relation to the environment, the people, the purpose and the structure. The plan looks perfect on the paper, but in reality, when you walk down the road of skyscrapers, you are greeted with huge glass facades and aluminum exteriors, completely unsustainable. Now compare this stark, cold structure to a building housed amidst rows of trees, built in stone or brick, complete with wooden fixtures, what would make you smile? It wouldn’t be a long shot to guess the latter.

A pursuit of beauty in changing times, reminds me of the life of Howard Roark, the famous protagonist of Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead (ISBN 0-451-19115-3). In his entire life, he had been dedicated to erecting structures that had an integrity of their own. Structures which were created by the very land that they were built on. Structures which were beautiful because they could not be anything but that. In the book, his companion, a character called Dominique, writes about his buildings, which she publicly denounces but privately reveres, she says, “The Enright House is bright and bold. So is a feather boa. It will attract attention – but only to the immense audacity of Mr. Roark’s conceit. When this building is erected, it will be a wound on the face of our city. A wound too, is colorful.” Her choice of the word colorful is an expression of its beauty. His buildings are beautiful structures, because they follow the conventions of a good building, they maintain an economy of space, they use the natural elements of wind and light to their maximum advantage thus becoming highly economical and sustainable in the long run, they are built with a purpose, each wall, each stair, has a meaning, and it is this thought that gives the structure its unparalleled beauty.

So, we move along in our quest, changing with the times, bearing in mind certain principles, in search of that elusive term, beauty.

Future Shock or Surprise?

2009-11-16T08:36:00.001+05:30

No this post is not a review on the book by Alvin Toffler, which I do want to read but haven't managed to so far... it's just that lately i've been dreaming and thinking about my future... personal yes, but professionally too.

i'm doing a masters in advertising and marketing which has got me thinking about various careers that it can lead to. ad agencies, fmcg companies (fast moving consumer goods, like HUL and P&G), marketing companies, brand management, copywriting, account planning... there are a lot of options but i'm still searching. i wanted to do something with films and designs. i thought a career which required me to meet people, talk to them, understand their requirements, get it executed, imagine, design, etc. would be ideal. this sounds like the perfect job description for client servicing and account planning. but i don't know. i think i'll know only after i begin working in a company. then i also had these thoughts of working with a magazine house, i can design layouts, do their marketing, liasion with companies, and so on... then there is retail! imagine being a part of PVR and negotiating deals with companies, designing special packages, everything actual and on the ground! there are many options, I don't know which one i'll find most appealing.

personally i am beginning to now think, how does it work? we're 52 students in our class, yes we all want to do our own individual things, but how can we all be the best? how do all of us get work? if everyone wants to be managers, if everyone wants to lead, then how do we work as a team? it reminds me of this time in BMS (graduation - management studies) when we made a team which had most of the dominating people together, like most leaders! and we failed miserably, our presentation, even though conceptually good, was a complete flop in execution! too many great minds together make for a poor team. a team must be balanced. you must have weird thinkers, you must have workers, you must have leaders, above all there must be balance. a team of only leaders doesn't work at all. the ego clashes are far too many to reach any sort of understanding and consensus. and sometimes you just want to go ahead on something without having an elaborate discussion on it!

recently i was down for about a day, and i was at home doing something or the other... i watched two movies, Step Up 2: The Streets and Enchanted. Step Up was interesting. it had me dreaming! No seriously! I dreamt of some of the moves and there was a classmate of mine in my dreams too! :) the intricacies of the movie, the thoughts, the choreography... was amazing! Enchanted was a Walt Disney movie and i'm glad i watched it because up till now i've only seen the ending... the movie was of course a kiddy movie, but i enjoyed it! there was this absolutely hilarious scene where the squirrel (Pip) is trying to enact a scene between a witch and her conniver, Nathaniel and he does it so well! The animation for Walt Disney movies is just amazing!!

watched a spate of movies lately... Wake Up, Sid! was by far the best movie i've seen in a long long time. For more details on the review please read i absolutely loved the movie and i'm in love with the songs. every morning when i'm on my way to someplace, i have to listen to the entire album... 'iktara' has me swooned and 'kya karoon' is the perfect good morning song! :D hmm... then i saw 'Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani' Oh dear! what a movie! :( majorly disappointing! no storyline, poor set design, very poor forgettable screenplay, no chemistry, bad acting, bad songs, poor choreography, ooof... i can't crib no more! the saddest part was there was NOTHING gazab about the prem kahani! i mean, the fact that he didn't say, 'i love you' in the whole movie to her, is no claim for it being GAZAB! seriously which world were they living in! the whole concept was made to look like a remake of 'Andaaz Apna Apna' which was a classic movie in its time and still manages to hook people. but you can't repeat the same pattern in today's times and expect people to laugh! it just doesn't work! On the other hand, i saw 'This is it' and even though i wasn't a great MJ fan, i am one now. seriously that concert had it happened would've been the best thing people have ever seen! the kind of efforts that they put in, the kind of effects, rehearsals, planning, they did was out of this world! What a comeback it would've been! some of my friends had seen the movie literally everyday of the time it was in the theatres... since then i've downloaded most of his music and enjoy listening to it! :) Then i saw 'The Rebound' with Catherine Zeta Jones and some guy... not a great movie, a decent movie. the storyline was predictable. the acting was normal. the incidents were too daily. the conversations weren't out of the ordinary. overall, it was a normal rom-com. I liked a couple of scenes in the movie... and remember some of them, there's this scene where catherine begins to feel like she's pregnant, so her breasts start swelling and paining, she's at her work desk, and she's just feeling them to be sure, when her colleague passes by and stares! so she quickly quips, "It helps me think!" :D hehe... i found her response funny! like seriously imagine you were doing something like that at your work, what would you say? 'my underwire came off?' hehe.... i don't know what i would do! but i liked her response! it had the whole, it's my life, my body, attitude... sometimes i seriously wish i was young during the 'bra liberation movement' it would've helped so much!!

okay now i'm rambling so i must stop!

oh my books. before i forget. since i'm too bored to write individual reviews for the books i've read, here's a short snippet. i read 'sea of poppies - amitav ghosh' and found the book okay. it wasn't as good as 'the hungry tide' which i absolutely loved! it was a nicely developed book, and the stories were beautifully interwoven. only what made me feel incomplete was the fact that it abruptly ended. it was almost as the climax that you waited for all through the book just never came... it led to the the brink only to fall flat. now i'm currently reading 'outliers - malcolm gladwell' Awesome book! mom put me up to it, and i'm so glad... it's got some amazing insights into the effects of our systems on the learning and knowledge curve and eventually our successes! i re-read 'Shantaram' and i think that's a book i'd love to keep reading over and over just like 'Fountainhead' which also i recently re-read.

well that's pretty much my life summed up... :) happy living!

Awaiting Rains... An old post...

2009-10-20T01:18:00.000+05:30

the hot summer breeze,

the sweaty, rusty bodies,

the dirt filled roads,

and the brown sheath all over,

the pregnant wait for respite,

the thirst for the flow,

much like a mother's anticipation,

the weather toils us hard,

the small silly poems that we learn,

the enforced joy that we never feel,

for the weather that doesn't change

in spite of our many pleas,

the two months that we long for,

quickly turn into boredom,

and suddenly we long to be,

amongst the concrete breeze,

the play, the trips and the wait,

passes by like a glimpse,

and soon we are shopping,

for umbrellas, boots and more,

come the first grey cloud,

and expectant eyes scan the sky,

from the old to the new,

everyone stakes their buy,

soon enough we hear the sound,

the rumble of the clouds,

and pit-pat comes the drop,

dripping on the grounds,

running astray are many children,

few of whom are afraid,

most of them leap with joy,

for the rains are finally here to stay,

soon enough the sheath,

turns to green from the brown,

and into smiles from the frowns,

emotions bloom and get aroused,

and the love sets into the mind,

the monsoon comes and

takes the weather literally by storm,

and the lives of all tenderly wait,

patiently for the wintery nights...

Letter to Society

2009-10-18T00:19:00.000+05:30

I, a resident of Takshila, Bldg. No XX would like to bring to your notice the sheer inhumanity with which crackers are being bursted in the colony. One would expect that a colony has some rules and regulations, which must not permit the bursting of crackers beyond a certain time limit. For all practical purposes, a 10 O’Clock deadline must be imposed upon those who wish to burst crackers within the colony. It is sheer insanity to permit the people who burst long malas / laddis at 11:30 PM on the main road of the colony.

Presently in our colony, we have around 33 Bldgs each consisting of numerous flats. The people living in these flats range from the young children to the senior citizens. Apart from humans, we also have a healthy population of dogs and cats in the colony.

I have observed, every festival crackers are being bursted without any consideration and no action is being taken against the people. Buildings should instruct their members not to burst crackers such as Atom Bombs, Laxmi Bombs, and long laddis for any occasions, Ganeshotsav, Diwali, Navratri. These crackers are not only made by child labourers, but also cause air, land and noise pollution beyond all limits. As a society, we must do what the Govt. is unable to do to the city. Why should we encourage such acts of insentivity? Is it not within the purview of the society’s management to ensure that appropriate social etiquette is maintained? How are we to ensure that?

At 11:30 PM, today, on 17^th October, 2009, a group of 5 boys had lit a long laddi of crackers in front of our building, XXX. Without having to exaggerate, this laddi stretched right from one end of our building to more than half-way beyond the building on our left, XXX. This long laddi bursted loudly for almost 20-25 mins during which time all the people suffered immensely. The physical damages of hearing problems, heart pressure, blood pressure, are immense not only for humans but also for animals. No amount of yelling at them to douse the cracker with water to prevent further harm worked. The fact that it inconvenienced nearly the whole colony made no difference to them. It is high time that such people be asked to go and burst their crackers elsewhere but not within the colony premises.

Our colony once stood for it’s beautiful natural trees, and life, it once stood for the right things. It is time for you to encourage people to move in the right direction yet again.

I hope that you shall take some corrective action and shall give my humble letter some consideration. I only request, that before every festival approaches, simple notices on the society boards, personal one-on-one discussions with all watchmans to make them aware of what they need to police, talks with Bldg. Secretaries to ask them to convey the message to the society members would go a long way in re-creating the aura that Takshila was.

Crackers have cracked me!

2009-10-17T23:36:00.000+05:30

I'm sick and tired of firecrackers! It's always the same story, whether it's Ganeshotsav, Durga Puja, Navratri, Diwali.... I don't understand when the concept of sparklers and anars changed to atom bombs, laxmi bombs and laddis... Why must a child, boys, or anybody even want to crack these crackers?! To what pleasure? To whose liking? For whom? Why must we attempt to stimulate the terror and horror that real terrorists shower upon us? Why must we tune our lives to their sounds? Why should our Diwali be shrouded with sounds and bangs of horrifyingly loud crackers? Is it that big a nexus that the Govt. cannot simply ban the crackers and the allied sound items?! What sort of a Government are we living in?

In my school, 10 years ago, we were taught about how entirely harmful crackers are, not just as a product but also as a means... child labour is used to produce crackers, the crackers cause noise pollution, air pollution, land pollution, and yet we continue and allow their sale and purchase and justify it as enjoyment? For whom? At what cost?

Every festival is the same story! Does the city have no concept of sensitivity? Is there no concept of civic sense? What could compel 5 boys from the society, to burst a 1000 ki laddi on the main road inside the society which lasted for nearly 20 mins? How does one justify it? What can i do against it?

Even the 100 police control room doesn't respond! They're probably celebrating Diwali themselves but what does a citizen do? Give me a gun and I'll shoot those men down! But that still doesn't solve the root. Education? I doubt logic appeals to them. It is force, that must be exerted. I wish I could take the damn laddi and surround their body with it and put it to light in a closed sound proof room. That would serve them right! I'm boiling with rage, that will be converted into action tomorrow.

I have found my mission. I refuse to live in a society that a) permits the production and sale of these crackers. b) allows these perpetuators of the crime to go scot-free.

My goal for tomorrow is to find out what the law states and how I, as a citizen can do something to charge these men.

I hope to receive your support in my endeavour. If someone is already on this path, do let me know, I offer my services.

My mother's hands...

2009-10-14T16:24:00.000+05:30

This image reminds me of each time in my life when I’ve been too busy running from pillar to post about something and my mother’s been my rock while also asking me to slow down and have fun! In a time and age when parents are increasingly becoming insecure about their children in this “big bad world” my mother has stood by my side and let me live a carefree, free life! Each time I ask her if I could go out of town with friends, her first reaction is never being upset, or disappointment but excitement for my plans. Each time when I return from those trips, however late I might be, her first question is never “Why so late?” but “How was it?”

My mother is a treasure trove. She has jewels in her speech which she hands out to others generously and at the right moments. I love her when she compliments my friends frankly without being embarrassed about her statements; I loved her when she actually told my best friend that she had a sexy butt!

In this photo, you can see her playfully reaching out to my niece, Rhea who is just 3 months old. My mother always told me how she cherished the times when we were babies, and how she loved to hold us close to her. Till date, whenever she’s awake while I’m going to sleep, she never hesitates to cup her hands around my cheeks till her warmth spreads all across my face, she always strokes my hair gently, and the very motion always succeeds in making me feel the warm, touch of love, which makes me promptly fall into this blissful sleep.

She thinks her hands are too hard and cold, but those are the hands that brought softness, warmth and love into my life.

Wake Up, Sid!!

2009-10-14T08:14:00.000+05:30

What a better way to begin your morning than to write about the movie, Wake Up, Sid! :)

It's one of the most happy, feel-good rom-coms the Hindi film industry has produced in a long long time! There are a lot of things right with the movie, from the simple story, to the well etched characters, to some fantastic acting, seamlessly blended background songs, real locations, and good cinematography.

For starters, I saw this movie almost immediately after I saw, "What's your raashee?" and so I was obviously highly impressed with the HUGE difference in the two... But even otherwise, this movie was a happy movie which left you with a smile on your face...

A simple story about a rich father's son, Sid Mehra (Ranbir), whose only occupation is to spend his father's money on parties, time-pass, and clicking photos. He meets Aisha Banerjee (Konkana) who's just come to Bombay from Calcutta (using the old names purposely - the movie did too!) She's a mature, wanting to be independent woman, who wants to make it big with her writing. They meet at a party and he decides to help her out. Soon he's helping her set up her own home, taking her out to show her the city, etc. etc. She hunts for a job with a magazine house and gets to be the Editor's Asst. Meanwhile Sid has learnt that he has flunked his exams. In this mood, he gets into an argument with his father and vows not to return home. Having nowhere else to go, he goes to her place and stays there. Over a span of weeks, he grows up learning how to keep the house the way she likes it, how to cook eggs, and other such cute things! Now he needs a job, and guess what?! He finds one as an intern in her magazine house. So both are employed there and it's a beautiful world...

The undercurrents of emotions, jealousy, love, are all well played out... even some scenes with him and his friends and him and his office colleagues are well directed.

There is an ease in the acting, the ease translates onto the screen as well. It's not raw, it is acting, but it is extremely well-done. Both Konkana and Ranbir are very expressive and together they make an odd but believable couple. The beauty is that they fit the characters to the T and you realise that the script was written keeping them in mind. I absolutely enjoyed the songs as well, there is no song which either of them sings... all songs are background scores which are seamlessly integrated with the script...

Oh! There are a million reasons why you must watch this movie! Go for it!

Trivia - Did you know that the director, Ayan Mukherjee is only a 21 year old or something! I think it's a beautiful job irrespective of his age! :)

What's your Raashee?

2009-10-05T20:54:00.000+05:30

Well, this is going to be a short one!

To begin with, I was expecting a movie worth the name it was carrying, "Ashutosh Gowariker" It did not. It failed miserably!

For starters,

1. Harman Baweja - This guy is terrible. I haven't seen Love Story 2050, but I'm willing to bet, it wasn't good because of him. His acting is substandard, his expressions are non-existent and his entire screen presence is minimal. In a screen he shares with Darshan Jariwalla, one tends to notice the latter.

He is also completely overshadowed by Priyanka in the movie, for starters, the movie revolves around him, but he's more like the frame in which Priyanka is set!

2. Poor screenplay - There's hardly any dialogue which evokes an emotion, no laughter, no humour, no emotional touchpoint either. I'm wondering what happened to the Ashutosh Gowariker we know! In the entire movie of 3 1/2 hours (sigh) I remember only one dialogue, where Darshan (Debu) says to these two men who're attempting to speak in English, "If you want to talk business, then talk Gujarati" That dialogue was quite apt!

3. Poor Poor Direction - At first I thought there's been some mistake, this movie could not have been directed by the same director of Jodhaa Akbar. The same man who managed to bring out sheer chemistry between Aishwarya and Hrithik in the Jodhaa Akbar, failed to even evoke a response for the whole movie! The movie makes me feel like he had a concept which he decided to shoot. The actors have pretended to behave normally, hence there's very little over-the-top acting, but that acting is still acting, it's not natural or normal... It's not even raw, it's like made-up something! The basic idea is not clear and it shows through the movie.

4. No editing! - This movie like most of his others is again a long one! 3 1/2 hours for no rhyme or reason! There was absolutely no necessity for the umpteen songs, save one, choreographed and co-performed by Terence Lewis. That was a beauty. It was a treat to see Priyanka perform in that song... But apart from that song, and the other one in which Harman does some 'Step-Up' type dancing, there's no song needed in that movie!!

5. Bad plot - The movie ended with a fade out sort of a sequence, and you're left wondering, Oh my God, that's it, it ended?! THAT was an END?! THAT's what I paid money for?! It was a huge let down...

My ideal ending would've been (in these circumstances) that Priyanka eventually reveals that she's one person and not 12 different people! That would've made it worth it a little bit!

So all in all,

Priyanka's done a great job, she's actually acted in 12 different roles and that's a huge thing. The make-up, dressing, sculpting of each character was well done. So thumbs up to her!

But for the rest, it doesn't really matter. Don't watch the movie!

Blogging!

2009-10-05T20:50:00.000+05:30

i made a list in class today... i realised i haven't blogged about anything in ages. i thought of a small theory, probably applicable only to me... maybe because i talk a lot to friends close to me, i rarely feel the urge to blog these days as i used to earlier... earlier the blog was my outlet, today i just talk a lot! :)

well,

here's a list of what to watch out for on my blog... planning to blog a LOT today!!

1. Movie Review - What's your raashee?
2. Movie Review - Wake Up, Sid!
3. October Heat?! Hell No! We've got October Rains!
4. Weekend Getaway - Matheran
5. Weekend Getaway - Uran
6. Mother's Hands

So read on! and wait for the blogs!!

:)

XIC!

2009-08-03T22:02:00.000+05:30

It's been a little more than a month at my new college... Xavier Institute of Communications. While there are a few things that I don't like about the college, like their strict implementation of a dress code!! (imagine not being able to wear sleeveless tops, no knee length skirts, no three-fourths even!) I've literally run out of jeans and tops and kurtas by now.. but we trudge on...

Apart from that I'm thoroughly enjoying the course. The kind of amazing insights that we get from our faculty members, coupled with some good competition in class is really a refreshing change from graduation! Just a couple of days back we had this amazing class by Josie Paul, who's currently running an agency in Mumbai, he actually taught us how our everyday images, conversations and scenes become inspirations for advertisements. Some of the greatest ad concepts are actually from the copywriter's real life experiences. That thought set us all thinking and soon the entire class was contributing their observations and it was really amazing to hear some vivid descriptions of things that we've noticed, and have made an impact on us.

There was another amazing faculty member, Vivianne D'Souza, she taught us through a day long workshop more about business etiquette and corporate grooming than we would have learned in years of working. Her workshop certainly put us years ahead of our contemporaries. Amazing insights into why one should wear a particular cut / style of clothing, what colors convey what meaning, how should one handle visiting cards, how should one have a drink in one hand and still use etiquette norms for business conversions and so on... oooh.. i could write a whole blog just on her workshop. What I also loved was how she actually practically taught us to cut with a knife and skewer with a fork! :) no kidding! and i discovered i have a pear body type, a round face and a pink skin tone and hence must ensure to wear dresses / tops / shirts that don't cut me at my hips!! :D

today's session on rural marketing was also quite an eye-opener. I wish our BMS professors could compile a fact file as impressive as the one the faculty member shared with us today. there are 6,27,000 villages in India, 51% of the villagers are literate, 1 in 42 villages has a medical center, 55% of LIC's policies were sold amongst villagers last year, and so on and so forth. Talk about increasing buying power and growing prosperity. Another interesting fact, even though quite a few of them today own a TV, it's not the best mode to advertise because: 1) during the season time there's no time to watch TV, they carry a radio to the fields and listen to it while they work. 2) during off season the electricity supply is diverted to the industries and they have power for only an hour or two in the day!

another of our sessions involved the class observing a group discussion and it felt strange to evaluate a group of your batch-mates to scout for a leader amongst them. Not surprisingly, it was a girl who spoke subtly yet firmly, voiced her opinions clearly, played the role of a mediator, drove the group towards the topic on hand... the qualities that a leader must possess. No amount of jargon could have hit this point so clearly home.

Ahh... enough of hunky dory thoughts I must say. OOOhhh.. i nearly forgot about print production, being taken by our professor Bimal Chaku, it's really amazing to actually learn how the offset printing process actually works and why the plate is prepared in a certain fashion, and all that. :)

Lots more to talk about... the canteen food for one. boy we get just about everything. most of it is good. the chaat unfortunately is not. i miss manju (the head waiter / cook / whatever at sydenham), his bhel used to be the best!! but the aloo paratha here is pretty good. fattening but good! :) he gives one spoonful of butter!! :D

well, so as you can see i have a good reason to call myself a proud XIC student! :D

Cheeers!

Tweet Tweet!

2009-07-14T20:12:00.000+05:30

Micro-blogging has come of age, especially to update people about circumstances. Today's rains in Mumbai were a 'trending topic' in Twitter. Called '#mumbairains'

People began updating or rather "tweeting" their status since morning, and some people like me who were at home were the media centres collating info from across the web, the TV and updates from friends and family over the phone... It was fun! and helpful...

Although there are spammers who take advantage of the fact that it's a trending topic and post spam messages about their products and their events or their websites. Another thing called as retweeting which I think is mainly to reiterate a particular post so that more people across the networks get the updates. Some people were also indulging in jokes and fooling around, which was quite irritating and irresponsible. Someone began to spread some nonsense about a typhoon alert in Vashi and when lots of people began to question his source, he threw his hands in the air and said, "Chill guys, it was a joke!" Now, that's not funny!!

But what I wonder is, I mean while this is great service, how will micro-blogging ever become something that's sustainable on a regular day? I mean, what and why should I regularly tweet when nothing special / unusual has occurred. The challenge for the Twitter people is to find something to bridge this gap. Make micro-blogging into an activity, or add some sort of software whereby this service becomes a habit on a daily, regular basis instead of the emergency-response triggering that it is now.

Truth about two people on earth being similar?!

2009-06-29T12:52:00.000+05:30

There are so many instances where we sight that two people (not related) are identical to each other. Of course, our movies have exaggerated the issue to a large extent, what with Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai and so on. But within a span of a few weeks, I came across two famous such instances. I don't know whether anyone else has actually spotted this, but I think there is proof to my case.

Two actors: Breckin Meyer (Kate & Leopold, 2001 fame) and Aditya Hitkari (Theatre actor - The Graduate) look so identical as you can see from this image.

Other two actors: Charlotte Rampling (Twice Upon a Time, French Movie - I happened to see on World Movies recently) and Suhasini Mulay (Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai and zillion other movies). Their mannerisms, their uptight character portrayals, all struck me as similar.

New York

2009-06-27T13:42:00.000+05:30

The film’s poster eerily looks similar to that of “Dostana” with only two different characters and the backdrop of the New York skyline instead of the Miami Beach. The movie’s completely different though. For a change, there’s a relevant issue instead of just college banter and the boy-meets-girl and they live happily ever after story. However, a relevant issue needs much more attention to detail which the movie has not achieved.

Its music, especially the track “Hai Junoon” is incredibly foot-tapping and rhythmic. The first half deals with the college life of the fresher, Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh) who comes to the New York State University for his masters where he meets his student counselor Maya (Katrina Kaif) who in turn introduces him to the college champ Sam (John Abraham). This college scene is a flashback from the recital that Omar’s giving Roshan (Irrfan Khan) who’s playing the FBI cop. Omar has been arrested by the FBI for being a terrorist suspect. However, the first half seems like a drag, with the pace of the movie being too slow, not performances to write home about and no dialogues that you’ll remember. One scene which struck me as odd was the one in which they’ve shown the students on campus reacting to the 9/11 blasts, the emotion displayed by the students is quite pale and not as dramatic as it should’ve been. Given the iconic stature of those blasts, that scene deserved better depiction.

In the second half, Omar returns into the lives of Maya and Sam, trying to prove that he and Sam, who the FBI suspects of having become a terrorist, are in fact innocent. It is here that one gets to glimpse some performances which will have an impact. John Abraham has for once shown some acting prowess in the way he’s portrayed the scene of a prisoner in the detention centre for being a terrorist suspect. The gruesome behavior of the cops and the trials of being a prisoner can literally give you goose bumps! Katrina has managed to portray her character fairly well, but she has not got a meaty character or a strong script to back her performance. Neil Nitin Mukesh was underplayed, which fits with the character, but I personally found his forced smile quite irritatingly unnatural. His performance in Johnny Gaddar was so much more stronger, I feel the director could’ve used his potential to perform in better fashion.

On the whole, the movie is worth a watch, especially since cinema-goers have been deprived of this excursion for so long!

Obsessed

2009-05-19T23:00:00.000+05:30

There are so many things in our lives that we care about, when does this care turn into something stronger so much so that it borders on becoming an obsession before it actually does.

Obsessions have no limits (which is of course why they're called that!), they could be absolutely anything! I, for one, am obsessed with cleanliness. Everything should be in order. It should be clean. It should be in straight lines (even the collages I make, I struggle to make them look like a collage, if I had my way, I would make collages in grids!) It has to be stacked height-wise, my clothes are arranged according to their use, cleaning my cupboard is my favorite past-time and if that's not enough, I have taken to cleaning cupboards of my friends! (No, don't call me now, I don't have the time! :)) I tend to fold clothes the way the laundry guy does it (thanks to my aunt and cousin who trained me) almost automatically. It's so natural for me, that wherever I am, I see something unfolded, I reflexively fold it in the right way. There have been times when I've tried clothes on in a shop and begun folding them back after trying them on only to realise that the saleslady is waiting with her arms outstretched to do the same!

Oh! People have obsessions too! (Thank God I'm not alone!) In fact, there's even a name for those who are afflicted with a stronger obsession than me, OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It's what afflicted Howard Hughes (on whom Leonardo DiCaprio's movie - The Aviator is made) He had an OCD of germs and dust which eventually led him to become obsessed with having to touch anything that had been touched by other people. Some people are obsessed with their food, they won't eat it any other way. I used to know of people (and not children) who wouldn't eat their sunny-side-up egg if it split! Gosh!

Obsession is not only limited to such things, people are also obsessed with smsing, they just can't seem to not sms their friends or whoever. I was caught in that phase sometime back, now I'm cured.. I only sms and talk to a few friends now... People are obsessed with being online! It just amazes me as to how they can be online (and show as 'visible' / 'available') and still manage to go through a full day's work. For a fact I know that if I'm online (and appearing so) I just can't seem to resist myself from talking and chatting with everyone around. Facebook unfortunately doesn't have an 'appear offline' feature yet so it's tough to be online there and not have people notice you...Being active on social networking sites is the 'in' thing now. Which one to be that on (or rather how many) is a whole new ballgame altogether.

Well, that's my take on obsessions, and even though I kept my work on hold while I blogged this, I'm not worried, it's been ages since I wrote without thinking about who's reading!

:)

Rambling...

2009-05-19T22:45:00.000+05:30

There was a time when a new movie released and I would watch it within a week or two... I simply don't know what happened to those times anymore. Somehow I seem to have become content with watching repeats of the movies I've seen before, reading the books that I've read before, meeting people that I meet everyday, I have shut myself to the possibilities of everything new. I seem to be stuck in a phase, stuck in an image. I prefer to eat at places I've eaten before, I drink the same drink, I have the same shot, it's all the same. Thankfully the last haircut I had was way different from what I've got ever! I'm beginning to realise my downfall, I'm beginning to realise that I'm choosing this, I'm behaving safe, I'm being foolish!

I need a jolt, I want to break free. The only thing different I'm doing these days is work, I'm doing different kinds of work! :) Aah.. for those who don't know it, it's a pleasure to work. It really is. Though sometimes it feels like drudgery, the point is, it keeps you busy, it allows you to open your minds, it gives you the freedom to explore, and what's best, if you're lucky and you strive hard, you'll actually get paid for it. I'm being paid, just about enough...

Recently I caught some movies at home... Saw the Bourne Supremacy which I thought was quite similar in plot to 'The Prometheus Deception' - the book by Robert Ludlum, in the sense that here's a man who's worked undercover for many years and he realises that he and his skills have been used. Then I saw 21, which I thought was brilliant, especially the bit when he switches the bag to uncover his professor. The professor is played by a famous actor, I've seen him in some other movie which I can't really recall and frankly I'm too lazy to google too. I also saw, Few Good Men, and Wow! Tom Cruise has really acted in this one. He's gone beyond his looks and man does he give competition to Jack Nicholson or not! I thoroughly enjoyed that one! I'm still waiting to see 'Slumdog Millionaire' and a host of other movies for which this post won't suffice.

Unfortunately I haven't made even an iota of progress in my reading so far, I'm surrounded by so many excellent books which I've yet to read and just don't seem to find the motivation to pick up a new one and read it. The only new books I've read was the Prometheus Deception and Bet Me (which was a gripping romantic novel)! Gosh! I almost feel ashamed to admit this, though I'm secretly hoping that this will prompt me to pick up any new book from the shelf and start devouring it... I'm reminded that ever since I got hooked up to Ayn Rand a few years ago, I haven't devoured any book!

Bloopers and Chances!

2009-05-08T23:47:00.000+05:30

Recently I had gone for a trip with my mom and eldest sister to Saputara, a hill station in Gujarat. We had booked a car and a driver for the entire journey.

From Saputara, we were going to go to Pune. The distance being approx. 280 kms. we estimated a 6 hour journey and thought that we'll reach around 4 pm in the evening considering we leave at 9.30 (taking a 30 min break for lunch) Little did we know we were going to be a solid three hours delayed!

Having travelled in the same car for 3 days before the return journey, our patience of listening to the only CD in the car was exhausted. Desperate to buy new CDs, we scrounged for a CD shop in the lanes of Nashik. I found one and bought VCDs for Delhi - 6 and Luck By Chance and an audio CD of A R Rehman.

The fancily equipped car had those LCD monitors on which you could watch a movie. Though it was a little difficult to follow the dialogues, overall it was an excellent experience. It took care of some great 3 hours of our journey. We had finished the fist half by the time we reached Sangamner for lunch. After lunch, we saw the second half and then peacefully dozed off for about an hour. When we woke up, we expected to be around 20 - 30 kms from Pune since it was almost 4 pm and the first sign board we saw, read Pune - 122 kms!! We had reached Ahmednagar instead of taking the right towards the original Pune road. Wasted a good 2 hours in the process of our detour!

We could blame it on "Luck By Chance", our dedicated concentration to the movie, ensured that we didn't pay attention to the roads and the driver kept driving without confirming directions!

As luck would have it, we then hit traffic while entering Pune and finally reached our destination at 7 pm instead of our original plan at 4 pm.

Lesson learned:- Next time you hire a car, ensure you discuss the route with the driver before inserting the VCD. And also carry maps. :)

Driving to freedom!

2009-04-20T00:37:00.001+05:30

I have always seen and heard my friends talking about driving a car… till today I never had the courage to actually do it. But do it I did. I took a risk. For the first time in my life probably, I acted upon someone else’s trust in me, and actually went ahead with the plan.

It was time for me to leave for my dance class, I thought I’ll take a bus or the auto. Something that my friend said made me think about taking the car. I decided to take the risk. Basically all this while, I’ve been waiting for someone to push me to do it. I don’t think I could’ve pushed myself at all. My mother was and probably is paranoid about my driving. She can’t relax in the car around me. That’s why I’ve never had the courage to drive on my own before. But today something struck me, something inside me made me want to do it.

I took the car out nice and slow. Knowing the roads pretty well helped cause that didn’t come in my way of driving. I went on to the highway and was comfortable driving at 40. I wanted to go faster but wasn’t sure about doing that. I took the flyover, went through Khar subway and exited out in Bandra.  once I crossed khar subway I knew I would reach class. That too on time!

I danced happily. In complete love with myself, so much so that I badly wanted to hug someone at that time, wanted to make that moment complete. I drove on and reached class. Parked alright. Then post class, I asked my friend from class to accompany me back. Coming from Linking Rd., we went to S V Rd., got very screwed up at Andheri – Shoppers Stop signal, had to wade through 4 signals before I could go ahead. Then took the highway and came from Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Rd., once I crossed that road and rook a right for poonam nagar, I realized I was home. Aah! What a wonderful night!

Radio Love

2009-04-06T23:42:00.000+05:30

The last time I was in love with the radio was when it had boomed around 5 years ago with a number of new channels coming on air! I can still recall being constantly tuned into Jaggu and Tarana's morning show on Go92.5, Savio on the College Radio and of course Malini in the evening show...

For now, I'm hooked on Meow 104.8 FM! and there are two beautiful reasons for this!

One is my vivacious friend Sameepa who has recently joined them as a RJ! She hosted her first show today, called MeriMeow during 8 - 10 pm on 104.8 FM and I am super proud of her! The whole thing with listening to this channel when she started competing for the RJ Host Hunt and all of us used to tune in to listen to her...

The second reason is another RJ Ajay... I happened to listen to his show Meow Masti during 10 pm - 1 am and I was floored. By his voice, his casual conversational chatting, and his prompt response to emails! By now, I'm completely hooked on to the shows and the channel in the evenings!

One of the other best reasons I love this channel now is that they play English music evening onwards! so yeah, tops my radio channel lists!

To Bid Adieu

2009-03-29T00:59:00.000+05:30

Like a relationship with a person, we form relationships with places as well... I'm on the brink of ending a relationship with a place I have come to call my home... Though I've only spent half the number of years in this place as compared to my earlier home, I have begun to identify myself with this space... In spite of my repeated murmurings about how this place is a house whereas Takshila (my home in Andheri) is home, it is now when I'm leaving from here that I realise how attached I have grown to this place...

It's not only about the physical space that I have here, but more about the memories that are associated with the comforts of the space that hit home. Because we had so much space, we were able to do so much more! Host our huge family for amazing dinners, host endless night-outs with friends, dance away to glory, choose different corners and spaces within the house to relax, define and decorate spaces for ourselves, spend time at the thousand-odd eateries, the long gorgeous promenade and the open, bright and airy surroundings. My home was the base for setting my strong friendships with so many people in college, at work and in general. The opportunity to do so many activities such as dancing which I really enjoy! Starting from Shiamak Davar way back in 2001, to Salsa in 2004, to Latin-Ballroom in 2007, I have grown in my choices and opinions. I have met so many diverse people, I have met people who have such rich backgrounds!

The entire process of sorting out papers, discarding some, repacking the others, gathering the clothes, packing them, is overwhelming to say the least. There are memories involved with literally every piece of item, while there are some books gifted by people, there are clothes that are gifted, there are notes that were scribbled and forgotten, there are photographs of moments lived...

Each year that went by now seems like a long windy road with variant lighting all along... some bright moments, and some dull...

I am exhausted today, by the sheer amount of things that we had to pack. The number of cartons just doesn't seem to reduce, the mess that there was now seems to fill each room, each paper, each photo makes me want to sit back and relive some moments that pass me by in a flash..

I feel a reluctance to leave, a desire to stay put, but move I know I must... we are going back to our old home, although, we've made a lot of changes in the home...

Monday is too soon, I don't think I'm ready to sever the cord yet, I wish I could just stay and be...

Personalisation in this Call-Centric World

2009-03-11T22:45:00.000+05:30

How many times in the day do you call up a service provide only to routed through the IVR? How does that make you feel? The agonizing wait for a human to come online... Today, everything requires to be automated to make it cost-effective for the providers. Be it your telecom service providers, your banks, your take-away, your computer / IT related issues, everything is routed through an IVR, and as a last resort, you are guided to the Customer Service Executive / Phone Banking Officers who shall be "happy to help you".

Yes, at times, it helps to have an automated system because it ensures that no matter who picks up the call, you're serviced the same. For example, if I want the number of an office / a restaurant and I call up JustDial.com, I don't care WHO picks up my call, because I get the number smsed to me just the same!

However, when I call up Barclays or any bank regarding a query, I have to patiently explain the entire case history, background, service request numbers, etc. before I can get the person to help me. The worst is, in case my call gets cut for some reason, I have to re-do this entire explanation for no fault of mine!

It is at points like these, that I begin to appreciate the importance and relief at having one-point contact persons in these conglomerates. The HDFC Ad which says that each of its executives is "empowered" hits home. Amidst stories which rank of displeasure and unsatisfaction, I have managed to get some one-point sources of contact at key places.

Case 1: Vodafone Store, suburbs (Mumbai)
I, along with a couple of friends, were planning to take up a new plan in Vodafone. This being the case, we were changing SIMs, new numbers, plans, etc. Some of us were getting new nos. with Vodafone and the form process, verification, etc. ran into some trouble. After some issues over the phone, I decided to pay them a visit. The first guy who had taken our requests, was busy, and the system automatically alloted me the seat with the counter that just got empty. I was unwilling at first to re-explain the case and the issues, because I wanted that same guy to take over. But then, realising that I had no choice, I re-explained, showed proofs, etc. He made some calls, took some signs, and asked me to come later (2-3 days). The next time I went, the 2nd guy was busy, and I was re-alloted to some 3rd guy. Thoroughly tired now, I refused to explain. This guy went, got my forms, asked the 2nd guy about the details, and then heard me out. He then found out all that was required and assured me that the services would get restored within a time frame. Typically they're not allowed to give out their personal numbers, but he makes an exception. He gives it to me and tells me when exactly to call him so that it'll help. Within a couple of days, the services are still not restored, I call him up, and he gets cracking and within half an hour the job is done. The next time I have some work with Vodafone, instead of calling their call centre, I just walk into the Store, call out to him and I'm the next customer he takes once the seat is empty. I explain the problems and all of them get ironed out! Just like that! I tell you, it's a blessing to have a one-contact person.

Case 2: A To Z Digital Prints
If you're the types who creates documents, handles printing and designing in your office or home, then you would have made endless number of visits to the printers in your locality. Sometimes it's convenient to get your documents printed from just about anywhere, but at others it's best to have a printer you're familiar with. My family is full of architects, and hence we have a lot of printing work, so we have our regular printer at ATOZ, (suburb). I had gone there for some work for office, and struck up a rapport with one of the key person-in-charge there. He spoke Gujarati and was helpful in all possible respects. Later, when I had some personal work to be done, he actually called up as a follow-up to let me know that even though I'm stretching the deadline too fine, he'll still manage to get the work done within the minimum possible time! I was amazed, here was I, stressed out, not slept for more than a couple of hours, trying desparately to finish the document before 9 a.m., the time was running out, I had stretched from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., to 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and had finally reached his shop by 6.30 p.m.!! I thought I was done for, I had lost hope of getting a good document, I was to catch as bus that night to Pune, and I knew that I was terribly late in the whole thing, but this man stuck to his words. I had my document looking as fine as ever, possibly the best thing I've seen, within 1 1/2 hour and I was on the bus in the next hour! It was incredible! All through the morning, he must have called me up at least 4 times, only to tell me, not to worry, and that he would get it done within no time, as soon as I reached there. And he did. Now, whenever I think of printing, I go there. It's as simple, all I have to do, is call him, tell him what I need, he gets the best deal, the best paper, the best quality, my work gets done on a priority and he in turn gets a loyal customer! Beat that!

Oh, it's a blessing to have humans around, but for them, we would have been lost in this crazy, sticking-by-the-system-call-centre-world! This is also one of the reasons why the latest Baroda-next advertisement has been rolling on the floors, it strikes a chord somewhere! Would love to hear your experiences if any! I'm signing off to do another day's work. :)

Jaago Re!

2009-03-09T23:09:00.000+05:30

Well, elections are barely a month away and the political fever is catching up everywhere. I'm 21, going to be 22 this year. I've been eligible to vote for almost 4 years now and I will vote this year.

Pavratti, the campaign manager of the Jaago Re (Tata Tea) campaign, had come to SIMC (Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Lavale Campus, Pune). He is an alumnus of the institute. He spoke at length about how the campaign has aimed to make a difference to the scenario of the youth voting. He actually proved to us (students) mathematically, how we CAN ACTUALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE! The probability, the numbers, everything is in our favour. If only we decide we want to make that difference.

The website created is really amazing. jaagore.com just click on it and you'll know why. It enables you as a first-time voter to understand the process and download and fill forms. If you are an existing voter but have some changes, links are available in the downloads sections too.

Make some noise,
Spread the word,
Let's make that difference,

Leaving you with the words of Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see"

Mumbai Mirror's Most Searched Tags

2009-03-04T19:45:00.001+05:30

It's amusing to note that people search for Mumbai Sex Aishwarya... while Raj Thackeray is forgotten in public memory...

:)

Princess Diana...

2009-03-04T11:11:00.001+05:30

Reading a book filled with some amazing images, I fight back tears,
Hunched up in a corner, subtly caressing those pages, I mildly shiver,
Imagining the life that she must've led,
Reading about the crusades that she fought against the press,
I wonder how the fairy tale must've unfolded,

For all we say is the train that trailed...

Born a Spencer, died the Princess Diana,
Having lived her life on her own terms,

Touching patients, kids, and lives,
She gladdened many-a-heart,

So many memories captured and treasured,
That we stay in awe of her,

So many people whose lives she touched,
Remember and cherish the beauty in her,

The world saw what they had wanted to see,
A family saga, with moments of glee,

Few saw her for who she really was,
A warm-hearted, loving, caring woman,
With a passion to swim and dance,

She not only brought attention to the plight of many,
She called for changes in the lives of many,
Fighting for causes of landmines and HIV/AIDS,
She was a symbol of hope till her living days,

A messiah of hope for those who had given up,
A woman of substance for those not strong enough,
A defiant individual for those superstitious,
A performer on the stage where none have fought,

With great world leaders like Nelson Mendala,
She was cherished by even Mother Teresa,
Fondly remembered by her blood and kin,
She was every photographer's dream,

A soulful rendition by Sir Elton John,
Earl Spencer spoke for all the hearts,
Years have gone by and yet I think,
About one of the world's most beautiful woman who has lived...

[I happened to go through a coffee table book titled "The Diana", a beautiful book with lots of images of her life from her early days to her wedding and her charities. There were interesting interviews, and it spoke volumes about the complexities in her life. Having been interested in biographies, I found this book to be a very passionate collection of her life...]

Delhi - 6

2009-02-23T19:08:00.000+05:30

Why is it that we only like or appreciate movies that tell a depressing tale or are extremely lively? We have begun to conform to some norms for films and we expect every film to be better than the last.

Delhi-6, I felt was a beautifully made movie especially in terms of the rendition of some scenes and some shots. The story is quite simple with a lot of characters. Waheeda Rehman wants to back to her city, Delhi from New York to die peacefully. Her son refuses to come back, and hence her grandson, Abhishek Bachchan decides to bring her back and stay with her. Once here, he is immediately absorbed into the daily brouhaha (organised chaos) of a local city. Rishi Kapoor plays a character of Baig Uncle, Om Puri, Suchitra Phatak, and others are neighbours. Divya Dutta essayed her role of a sweeper very beautifully! The usual Hindu-Muslim angle is also brought in with seamless accuracy. Sonam Kapoor though a leading character doesn't have much of a role, her aim is to become an Indian Idol to get out of the usual marriage-system.

Images of a local Delhi, shots of spontaneous dances, and some good dialogues kept the audience in a happy mood. Half-way through the movie, you're thinking about the direction of the movie, is it only a love story, is it about religion, is it about the public servants, is it about the city, you're wondering, but you're not puzzled. It's amusing at times, and light-hearted almost throughout. There are quite a few shots and moods that remind you of Rang De Basanti, only it's not so hard-hitting. The editing of a Ramayana story in the backdrop and the actual story in the forefront is very well done.

The end is a slight tear-jerker with the usual exaggeration of events to make a point, but the point hits home.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate this movie at 6. It's good for a one-time watch. It's not an exceptional movie, but it's a well-made one.

Choices

2008-12-27T00:22:00.001+05:30

Choices

“Left Turn or Right Turn?!” Oh! Gosh! I just can’t make up my mind! Maybe it’s left, or no, hang on, it’s not…”

Choice

One word that makes all the difference in the world, Right from the time we are born, to the moment we breathe our last breath, we are making choices, some conscious and most unconscious.

We make choices regarding the friends we have our lunch with, the friends with whom we sit in a lecture, the people we choose to work with, the loved ones we choose to live with, the doctor we choose to treat us, the banker we choose to bank with, the book we choose to read, the movie we choose to see and so on and so forth.

So what’s new? We all do this, day in and day out. The point is, why and how do we choose.

Typically, every person has their own rationale behind their choices. The rationale could be different for some circumstances and it could be the same for all. Most would agree, and rightly so, that those whose rationale is different for different circumstances are “hyprocrites” or “opportunists”.

I am going to try and establish a certain foundation to make the right choices, i.e. right for you.

We are individuals, we are born into this world as one and even though we live with people, family and loved ones, we still retain our individuality.

However, living in the society, we tend to try and obscure this fact, in an attempt to bring people together.

For example, I want to pursue a career in dance, but the people around me, my parents, relatives and friends dissuade me from it. They say there is no future, there is no respect, and then I end up choosing a third career which I wasn’t inclined towards in the first place. In other words, I settle for the second best.

Careers, Lovers, Friends, Decisions, Negotiations, these are all based on choices.

The smart ones, make up their mind, know why they want a particular thing and guide the people around them to agree to their perspective. The people think it’s their choice that the person has agreed to, whereas all along he’s had his mind made up already.

There was a ground-breaking book that I had read, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. This book clearly states why we must make the choices we should. She has called her philosophy, Objectivism.

Let me explain with the help of an example, A doctor operating a patient, has to make a choice while cutting a nerve, one would be right – patient survives, one would be wrong – patient dies. A very clear black-and-white distinction between right and wrong.

Similarly, we must strive to make our choices as clear.

Do what you want to do, understand why you want to do it. The more the reason has to do with you, the more it is right. The more the reason has to do with others, the more it is wrong.

Do what makes you feel good. Somehow, there’s been a consorted view about happiness where feeling happy is equalled to something wrong. I have never known something sadder than this.

Do something that has a reason behind it. Doing a job because XYZ said so, has no value for you at the end of the day. Pursuing a course because the world is pursuing it, is the wrong reason to pursue it. Pursue it because you like the module, pursue it because it appeals to your intellect, do it because that’s what YOU want to do.

Another book, titled Shantaram written by Gregory David Roberts, had an interesting character who was a mafia don. I like one of his lines, “So often, we do the right things for the wrong reasons” Such an eloquent line!

At the end of the day, it’s not just a choice, it’s the ability and desire to accept responsibility for the success or failure of the choice. Remember Kareena Kapoor’s dialogue in the movie, Jab We Met, where she says that she doesn’t want to blame anyone for her choices? That’s the kind of attitude that wins in the end.

Parents want to make choices for their children, because they feel the children are not capable to take the responsibility that goes with the choice. This is a circle and the only way to break it is to prove yourself. Go out, find out for yourself, take your decision and live up to it. You could take the example of Hrithik Roshan in Lakshya, for this point.

To conclude, I’ll leave you with this quote,

“Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself.” - Robert F. Bennett

Remembering Avanti

2008-10-24T23:38:00.000+05:30

There are days which shock you, days which you live like you were a zombie, days when you don't know what's happening... days when you don't want to accept reality.

My closest, oldest and best friend, Avanti Desai, passed away on 23.10.2008. In a train accident at Jogeshwari station. I got to know from a friend of mine who was her colleague for quite some months...

Avanti, the friend who was with me ever since nursery... went to school with, and then she shifted to Powai. This distance in fact brought us closer. Though we met rarely, we shared a strong connection. Here's what she'd written for me as a testimonial on orkut, "Ayesha is my oldest friend. Which is why I can meet her twice in a year and still call her my best friend."

We shared so many beautiful moments together, it's hard to actually pick a few.

Whenever I think about her, I have flashes of her vivacious smile, her warm face and her quick wit! Being well-read she was informed about everything, plus she read a lot of variety of books, the kinds I would literally be intimidated by. There was a time, when she left our school PTVEM and shifted to Hiranandani School, when I thought that perhaps now we won't connect. But that was never meant to be. We were mature enough to understand changes, and our connection just grew stronger each time.

During times when people would scoff at you, Avanti would stand by you. I remember her telling me, don't worry about people, do what you feel right. She was highly opinionated and would always question each thought. Way back in 2nd standard, when faced with choosing priorities amongst friends, while most of us made the choices, she was the one who asked "why?".

Being the cleanliness freak that I was, her messy room and messy cupboard would always irk me. Until one time, when I visited her new home at Powai for the first time and (she later told me this) that I sat in the hall chatting with her mother, refusing to step down with her until she cleaned her room and cupboard. I can't believe she actually did it! When I went to her place on hearing about her accident, her mother asked me to go see her room. What would you expect? Spick and span. As clean as it could be.

I wish I could tell her how proud of her I am. For the thoughts she voiced, for the strength that she possessed, for the beautiful person that she was.

We shared a lot of passions, there are very few girls who can be passionate about make-up and politics and books and languages and films all at the same time! Avanti was such a person. We had made projects on Egypt, she was fascinated by Ramses II while I was taken in by Tutankhamun. Then she even had this dream of being a Ghost-Hunter!

There was this one time when I was meeting an acquaintance for the first time, and she was with me... She very cooly carried off an attitude and a lie about being a school teacher and what her experiences were and the guy was completely taken for a ride! I was barely managing to keep a straight face and just couldn't control myself when we finally told him the truth! I can still recall the look on her face then!

Times when she called me up just out of nowhere to talk about life, her friends, her experiences, her thoughts, the times she felt low, times when she just wanted to be heard.

I don't have any pictures of her, her image is burned in my mind forever. Her smile, and enthusiasm are like a beacon for my way ahead.

I love her and always will... She is my guiding angel.

Auto!

2008-10-09T16:10:00.000+05:30

We step out of our homes (assuming you live in the suburbs) and you hail for an auto to take you to the station, to your work, to the doctor or to any place you want to go to. This comfort is almost always taken for granted until they go on a strike! Oft late, I seemed to have become the passenger who is a listener. For some reason, I still can't figure out what, the auto-drivers seem to find me approachable to talk to.. Conversations are on diverse topics, some initiated by me when it comes to literacy, reading, bank accounts, garbage disposal, etc. but most are by them regarding their work, their lifestyles, etc.

Conversation 1
Route: Bandra Stn. to home

We started talking about his family and the fact that his children are now studying. Suddenly, he spoke in English. Mind you, it was excellently spoken. I'm usually very critical when it comes to languages, and this guy passed the test with flying colours. His accent was neutral, language was almost fluent! I was thoroughly impressed and surprised. We spoke in english and he seemed comfortable in the language. We spoke about his life, he told me about the hardships he faced and then I was almost home. As I'm habituated, I said a 'thank you' after giving him the money, he looks at me and says, "Madam, thank you. Apne meri baatein suni"

Conversation 2
Route: Santacruz Stn. (Office) to home

I was listening to my ipod till almost half the way, when suddenly there was a brake with a jerk and we narrowly escaped an accident. I was afraid this driver might want to go back and hurl a few chosen words at the other chap, but he hurried away too soon. As though some wall had broken, this guy starts talking. Realising that he wanted to talk, I put my ipod away and we spoke. He was telling me something about lives, and then suddenly he says, we have a lot of property in Bombay. People think that auto drivers are not smart enough, but we are. I got my brother educated. He's a doctor now and runs a nursing home very successfully in Sewri. I immediately blurted out, then why're you doing this work? why not do something better? He said, that's what even my brother says, but I'm alright doing this. He started telling me some incidents where, he has literally conned some foreigners! Foreigners who cannot read a meter used to pay him 10 times the amount, that too in dollars! He said he used to ask for dollars and dirams and he made very good money out of that. He said, nowadays they're smarter.

He has apparently given a loan of 7 Lakhs to his brother so that he could buy the sonography equipment for the clinic. He spoke about the times when his brother reprimanded him for his clothes when he went to the clinic. He said, he's stopped going there now. He denies being his brother's brother in front of people because he doesn't want to be specially treated.

I told him that it was wrong for him to cheat the foreigners, but I could see that he was an honest hard-working man. He'd made something out of himself, for his brother, for his family and for his children. All of them are studying in schools and colleges.

The world is changing... I think what helps is that because these people have such close interactions with customers and others who lead seemingly better lifestlyes, their exposure towards all these ways increases manifold. In more ways than one they pick up the better ways to do things.

Conversation 3
Route: Home to Salon

While talking about money, I spoke about saving and keep the money in a bank account. The driver looks at me (through those well-positioned mirrors) and says, "Madam account kholne ke liye proof kidhar hai?" Ration card, address proof, kuch bhi toh nahin hai hamare pass. Paise aate hai aur jaate hain. Din ka gujara ho jata hai.

Can nothing be done? I'm sure most of the others are in a better position than he was, but what about the percentage who are like him.

Leaving you with these thoughts, till the time I encounter something new.

Mamma Mia!

2008-10-09T16:03:00.001+05:30

A musical is like a breath of fresh air. For me, it's an outlet for a voice that's been away in hiding... I've always loved musicals, My Fair Lady and Sound of Music are movies that make me want to sit up, and sing! Sister Act (I and II) was fun too!

We had heard a lot about Mamma Mia, but somehow we kept missing it at the theatre... Until finally my mom and I decided that today was it. We were just going to see it! And we did!

To begin with we saw the movie at Gem which is just a tiny theatre with a capacity of 40 people. It was a late night Saturday show. Most people knew the songs of abba even before they walked in.

The movie begins and there’s this cheerful girl who starts singing honey, honey and suddenly we realized that we are not the only ones humming the song. In fact people are singing the songs!

The lyrics were being displayed on the screen and so we all started singing along with the movie and it turned out to be a sing-along mamma mia! Just like that! Without any planning, just spontaneous emotions at play!

What a joy ride it was, the actual act of singing each song out loud in tune with the 40 other people made it the most amazing movie experience ever!

The movie plot was fairly simple, the script was excellently written in parts and at other it was fairly good. The beauty was in the fact that the script had been written bearing in the mind the songs that were to be used, so the movie flowed and the songs seemed as though they were custom made for those very scenes when it must’ve been the other way around!

Merryl Streep has delivered a stunning performance especially in the way she emotes her songs and her dances. It’s amazing to see that kind of agility in a woman her age! Amanda, her friends and the others have done well but not spectacular. There was this one song in the movie which I had never heard before and I thoroughly enjoyed the picturisation, “Does your mother know” Such a perfect setting for a song and beautiful choreography! Pierce Brosnan has done alright. I would’ve expected something more from him though… Colin Firth has put on a lot of weight since I last saw him in a movie, (which was Bridget Jones incidentally) but he’s alright, nothing striking.

All in all, apart from Merryl Streep, the performances of the others are average. She is excellent!

The songs are the USP for the movie, and trust me, if you enjoy Abba songs, you will love the movie! It’s not a Oscar winning movie, but it’s a movie you want to own, watch and sing.

Why Rom-Coms?

2008-08-21T23:21:00.000+05:30

For a long time now, I've been in love with romantic comedies... I just can't seem to get enough of them. Today, I saw Notting Hill for the 'nth' time, although for some reason the movie completely eluded me... it was when I saw it that I remembered having seen it previously...

Anyways, so I've finished watching this movie, and I know that the next time I read 'Notting Hill' in the schedule, I will sit to watch the movie like I would for 'You've got mail' and 'Sleepless in seattle' and the other million lovely romantic comedies...

Until I asked myself why?

What is it that makes me want to go back and watch these movies... the fact that love exists? the fact that you could have a day like that? the fact that these dreams are not unachievable? the fact that for once you want to feel like that? or what?

Pondering, I am still thinking... Framing my thoughts while I pen this down...

I dismiss my own theories because I know that I have felt this way before, and that I have felt the height of what I have always wanted, and that I have got what I have wanted... Intrinsically, I believe that these movies simply make you feel better about your day, about your life, about yourself... They instill in you, a grace that you've probably lost in the stress and pace of the day, they bring out a song and a score that you will hum yourself to sleep and will whistle while going to work tomorrow... They are literally the feel-good movies, not because you're not living a good life or because you're not who you are, but only so that you relax, open up your eyes and feel good about yourself...

Like most books and most self-help preachers, the core to helping yourself is by understanding and being happy with yourself...

:)

I know I'm rambling, I know I've probably lost track of what I've wanted to say.. But the entire act of writing this post has helped me clear some of my muddle and I hope that you (however few) are smiling, not at the post, but at life...

:)

Books - A treasure trove like none other...

2008-08-12T22:35:00.000+05:30

The feeling of the freshly bound book in your hands... ah! it's absolute bliss... It would be so exciting to have a room just for books.. a personal library... wooden flooring, wooden bookshelves, floor cushions and a cup of tea... even if I have only the library and none of the above, it wouldn't matter!

I devour my books, madly passionate about them and rightfully so. I don't think there's anything so intensely personal as the words written in a book. In so many ways, I connect to certain traits in various characters, and in so many ways, I learn and begin to understand.

Like of the characters, Sidda (The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells) who loves her books, I too feel, while reading a book, it is as if the author is talking personally to you. You are the audience for whom the play is staged. That realisation, that glory, and that joy is beyond everything else...

My mother has been instrumental in evoking this passion for books, she read them out to me when I was a child. Any my family is also very literary oriented... I still remember the My first book of 4,000 words, a lovely times series book which was based on a family and their respective activities. Then came the "read-along-while-listening" books... The sound of the lady saying "turn the page when you hear a sound like this (bell chimes)" is a memory of the fun I used to have.

Moving then to the Illustrated Classics where Charles Dickens and Jules Verne captured my imagination completely. I almost forget to mention one of my favorite books, Heidi - Johanna Spyri. I remember each situation so clearly and more so because years later, when I was in school, probably 14 yrs. old, the cartoon series had started on cartoon network. The cartoons were designed by a Japanese or Korean and it was in English... Oh! How much my mother and I used to adore watching it. We never missed the show! :)

Then came the glorious days of reading Enid Blyton... her descriptions of breakfasts, dinners, snacks and suppers left me always hungry giving way to my midnight snacks! Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and others followed soon...

Jeffery Archer's Prodigal Daughter was one of my most adored books for a long time. Her thoughts, her character and her will became a benchmark for me. I remember being fascinated by the thought that I too could one day learn so many languages and speak fluently in them. I then read a few Sidney Sheldons, but quickly started reading more diverse books, such as Arthur Hailey, John Grisham, and others...

It was in college that I first came across Ayn Rand. Her philosophy and words have connected to me like none other. Her thoughts and characters have etched in my mind an image of what is right and of what I believe in. The direction that her books have given me, has helped me in so many ways to find myself and to be able to understand and appreciate myself. I'm currently reading her first novel, We The Living and it is amazing to see how expressive she was right from the start.

I now read a variety of books and I desire to read much more...

The above is not just an account of what I like to read, but also a journey, one that has helped mold my thoughts and my life by my choices.

I hope that you too have found your connections with books and lives...

Snippets

2008-07-25T08:28:00.000+05:30

There an equation of rains and Bombay that just strikes something in people's hearts I think...

Yesterday, there was heavy rainfall in the evening and I was on my way to Mindspace, Malad (W) for an appointment WITHOUT my umbrella! Extremely stupid! :)

I come out of station and I realise that I should've got my umbrella, having no option but to walk on I started walking towards some rickshaws. Obviously no one would go to where I wanted them to. Finally I approached a woman and asked her if I could share her umbrella! She put it over my head even before I could finish saying, "Excuse me... " She walked upto a bus stop with me and then she had to go her way. I managed to walk under the shade of some shop extensions till I decided that I had to buy a new umbrella. I approached the shopkeeper, but the cheapest umbrella he had was for Rs. 75/- Obviously I wasn't carrying enough spare cash!

I asked him to give me one on rent for an hour. He refused. I explained my situation and then the owner, a kind man, asked his son to give me his umbrella. I was so touched by his gesture! I mean who would do that! He gave me the umbrella and I managed to reach my appointment in time albeit a bit drenched!

On my way back, I returned the umbrella and was walking to the station, enjoying the sensation of getting wet!

:)

Pizza HAT!

2008-07-25T08:00:00.000+05:30

Has anybody been the new Pizza Hut (the one post renovation!!) If you have, I hope you have had a better experience than I did, (though I seriously doubt it!)

The new decor, I don't know who the interior designer was, but he/she had no sense of foresight! The new seating arrangements are sparse and utterly uncomfortable. Previously the section in the middle had two tables which could be combined to seat a large group of people. Now there are low sofas in a L shape, with tables (like coffee tables) and pouffes on the other side. This sort of seating is expected at lounge bars or coffee shops, definitely not pizze eateries!

We were a group of 7 people, waited for 15 mins for them to get the "table ready" In effect they didn't get anything ready, just placed table mats and plates. We were made to sit at a table meant for 5. We squeezed in somehow. In spite of regular requesting to shift us to a bigger and higher table, we were told that there is no space and that all those people who were leaving were sitting differently. Later we found out there they had no table which could be joined. Clearly customer satisfaction was not on their priority list. After much critiquing and complaining, we get a table meant for 4 and we squeeze ourselves around it. At least it's a table meant for dining!

Now to the food, we ordered Cheese Tortillas, Half n Half pizzas, Green Apple Cooler, Ice Tea and a Cream of Chicken soup. I am a fairly good judge of food even though I can't make it myself. The Cream of Chicken soup was clearly a Knorr soup with some pieces of chicken thrown in and cream for garnishing. What's worse it wasn't even piping hot! (as soups are meant to be!) The Cheese Tortillas as correctly noted by my friend were like khakra with cheese spread and onion! I mean literally, the tortilla base was completely wrong! The green apple cooler tasted like it was diluted beyond belief and thankfully the pizzas were as normal.

The service of the staff was clearly questionable. Poor training in what to do when, they probably hadn't got a manual for directions. McDonalds is quite good and clear about this, they have the directions very well defined and the staff just can't go wrong. Here the situation was very different. The staff had no clue what to say, they didn't know whom to report to, and they were just running around or merely standing. The reception desk / help desk had 3 people who were chit-chatting while we were calling for someone's attention. The manager (or leader) who attempted to explain to the waiter about how to lay the table, got frustrated and finally picked up plates himself... I won't be surprised to know that the entire staff was newly recruited. If they were, then they were simply not trained!

All in all, it was a very sad experience.

Probably they knew that the experience of customers was going to be disappointing and have done away with the "bell".

Snippets (Contd)

2008-07-06T23:44:00.000+05:30

Indian Weddings and ceremonies are known for their traditional and elongated processes.... and yet there are people (and families) who manage to combine ingenuity and tradition together!

I'm going to be attending a wedding in Calcutta, and it's a wedding of my friend's brother. All of us were just watching the engagement video and then there is this ceremony when all the women of the house are supposed to perform an aarti of the bride-to-be and apply a small tikka on her forehead and feed her something sweet. Considering the number of women, the amount of sweet that she has to consume is huge! This family found a unique way, that was non-messy, already small in proportion and sweet, guess what?? GEMS! It may sound like that's silly and all, but I think it makes perfect sense! :)

Reminds me of the changes that we all seem to be undergoing. Everywhere we see, brands are changing, CEAT, Vodafone, and so many other companies are hell-bent upon increasing their latest brand offering.

A true change that I find in my family is that my 88 year old grandmother, Aaji decides she wants to try something new. She is going to start wearing salwar khameez, something she has never known till date. In her childhood since 12 she started wearing nav-vari which then became paach-vari or the normal sari after her fourth child (my mom). Just last year she started wearing night gowns (for sheer comfort!) and now she wants to try salwar khameez! :) I think it's such a great thing! At this age, she went with my mom to fabindia and purchased some for herself! I'm waiting to see her in them!

:)

Snippets of Observations

2008-06-27T23:25:00.000+05:30

For a long time I've been thinking, there are so many little things that we notice each day. I'm going to start writing them down as each day goes by...

Day 1 (Thursday)

I'm on my way back from a meeting at Malad, and in the train, on one of the stations, a transgender walked in. Most of the times they're loud, garish and overtly obvious. She was different. I would call her 'she' because she was one. Graceful, beautiful and very feminine. Clad in a short kurta with pants and a duppatta, she was dressed like any tall big woman would be. Of course she didn't hold herself in the way women would, she was comfortable the way she was. I think that's what matters. Her eyes were the most striking feature of all, sharp, deep black, kind, tender and smiling. When a fellow passenger was attempting to get in, she was looking at her just like we would and she mildly reproached her. I think, with that small an interaction, not that I spoke to her, I was merely observing. One thing I noticed was, the more uncomfortable we are with ourselves, the more uncomfortable people around us are. At the end of the day, the way we feel, is the way others are going to feel about us. She was so calm, composed and alright with herself, that no body gave her a second glance. There was only an acknowledgment of her being there and that was it. Business as usual.

Day 2 (Thursday)

In the same train, while I was getting ready to step down, I observed yet another thing. There was a small school boy. He must've been around 12 years old. He was wearing the school uniform which looked like one of the local municipal schools. Carrying a huge bag on his back, he was waiting in the queue to get down. A peculiar observation amidst this rush, his bag strap, the one that was across his shoulder, had inscribed with blue ball pen, the word A K O N. Set me thinking, is this the same group who sang, "I'm so lonely" I think it is. If it is. It is another indication of the growing influence of English songs on the children today.

In the same context, (of global impact), I'd gone for a dinner party to a friend of my mother's recently. We were having a discussion on various topics and at that time, a person, made this comment which I found to be logical in more ways than one. He said, "I am not a representative of the country I belong to anymore. I have become a part of the homogeneous global youth. We dress similarly, we speak the same language, and we think more or less aligned."

Day 3 (Friday)

Friends and joy are such instinctual reactions that sometimes we tend to take it for granted. Today, I was pleasantly surprised to see a show of affection. Amidst all the hue and cry about Public Display of Affection, diverse sexual orientations and everything, I saw today, two girlfriends chatting animatedly with each other. They hugged, they gave each other pecks on their cheeks, they laughed with their hearts open, and they smiled with so much warmth, it was beautiful to just see them. When one of them got down at a station, I was looking at the other one and I saw, just as one would like to cuddle up with a bag, or with anything in our hands to think of the warmth we've just shared, she was holding her bag against her chest and giving herself a nice hug with it. She was looking out of the window, breeze blowing against her hair and she was smiling. Smiling thinking of the times spent, smiling because she was happy.

:)

I'm currently reading "Gone with the wind" by Margaret Mitchell. Tomorrow's another day.

It's raining again!!! :D

2008-06-08T20:52:00.000+05:30

It's been just about 4 days since the rains are here! And yesterday was the first time that I got wet, willingly! :)

Have you got that feeling inside you to just let go of everything that's bothering you, or that you're pondering about and you just want to feel free?

The rains bring that out in me... I see them and I remember the fun I had last year, roaming about in town on the bike, and enjoying the various scenes from the seaface, the gardens and the roads...

Everything undergoes a change with the season change, it's external as well as internal...

This season, makes me want to cuddle up with my blanket and sleep for long hours of the day... I feel an insane urge to have hot tea and kanda bhaji... I feel like running on the wet roads...

The rains bring out the child in me. :)

Of course, it's flooded, all the drains are choked, it's horrible to walk amidst the filth to work, and more, but that still doesn't take away the beauty of nature, the beauty of having a new season, the beauty of having bhutta on the roads, the pleasure of the cool air after the heat...

No matter what, I love the rains!!

Hope you have fun with them too!

Wish you all a very happy rainy season!

Gone With The Wind

2008-05-30T18:27:00.000+05:30

For all these years, I've been hearing this oft repeated phrase "Gone with the wind" and I knew it was in reference to the book written by Margaret Mitchell. It was just about fifteen days ago that I finally saw the movie! The first thing that striked me about the movie was the price! I wanted to buy it from the shop, and it was for Rs. 1,500! It must have been some collector's edition, nevertheless, I didn't have so much money to spend on it... So I ended up renting it for the night, little did I know that the entire movie is around 5 and 1/2 hours long...

I sit to watch this movie, and it takes me into this different world that I knew very little about. I had only read a little about the Civil War and about the differences that made South and North America.. There was a short introduction to the movie, enabling viewers like me to understand the contexts.

Another reference though not so prominent was a book that I had read a couple of years ago (which I re-read many more times, coz I thoroughly enjoyed the book). The book was "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" by Rebecca Wells, in which the protagonist, Viviane, is shown to fall in love with "Gone With the Wind". One dialogue that she refers to, "Oh! Necie (her friend) I want to live in this drama! I was made for it" and another quote from her daughter (Sidda), who recollects her mother's (Viviane) peculiar manner of raising her eyebrow, quite like the protagonist in the novel, Scarlett O' Hara.

The movie spans many years, and takes us through the beautiful fields and lands of South America, their cultures, and parties, the mindsets of the people, the war, death and destruction, conflict of land and of love, relationships, parenthood, slavery, hunger, determination and finally what triumphs, the love of the land...

Very beautifully interwoven, and articulately written, the artist's renderation of the screenplay is flawless! You begin to feel and connect with the characters to a great extent.

Scarlett O' Hara is a very intelligent woman, she is very symbolic of some of the ideals that an American individual tends to inherit from his land. Though her greatest value and asset is that she loves her land, Tara, (probably from terra, earth) the other things that she does, being proud of who she is, doing acts and things with her sole goal in mind, fiercely independent and sure, determined to achieve success at all costs... For me, this was an experience of sorts, because while through the whole movie, people were denouncing Scarlett's (whose character is played by Vivien Leigh) behavior and her manipulations, I was actually thinking that there was nothing wrong in doing what she did from her perspective. She wanted to achieve her goal, and she had kept that as her highest value, society's laws of governance, small talk and winning accolades from her friends, peers was of no concern for her. Her depiction of the character is superb and you must watch this movie for the various shades that you get to see in a character. It's like you're peeling off the skin from the character as part of the movie. It takes you through the various natures of men, women and those of society.

I consider this movie a classic and an absolute must-see!

No Space For Love

2008-04-15T21:56:00.000+05:30

Amidst news about the recent killings and deaths, another one stands out. A man dies while trying to save couples from drowning at Bandstand, a popular seafront promenade at Bandra, Mumbai.

Why?

Because of Love? Or space for love? Is it a crime to want to be with the person you love? Is it a crime to touch, feel or kiss that person?

I thoroughly disagree.

I would agree if people said is it okay to make love in front of people, nudity and obscenity and not acceptable, but kissing, hugging and holding hands is anything but that! We see it on T.V. everyday, so what's wrong in seeing it happen in front of our eyes?

Hypocritical as people are, they shun the couples away from every place... Gardens, Parks, Promenades and any public space you can think of.

What's the outcome? Couples are forced to spend time together in dark, lonely paths, go far out in depths where there aren't too many people, sit in dark theaters watching some crap movie, go to lonesome beaches... Isn't the society actually treating Love as a Crime? Why should they be forced to do it as if it were a shame? Why can't they be proud of it? Why can't they share the same space as the general public? Aren't they entitled to some space for themselves? Aren’t they a part of the same society?

Apparently not. Our society is full of people who believe that such “shameful” acts should be done behind closed doors and not in front of general people. They harbor thoughts that these acts shall incite further trouble. Not realizing that doing such acts in previously mentioned shady and secluded places incite more trouble, and in those situations, it’s difficult for the people to protect themselves against the perpetrators of the crime.

What would you do if a couple beside you were holding hands, hugging each other and kissing each other intermittently? In my observation, I haven’t noticed them do anything more physical than this. Let’s assume that this is what they generally do if they had to physically interact, so what would happen to the people around? Those who’re used to this behavior would go on as they always do. Those who are uncomfortable, may change their place or at most throw bad looks. What’s the worst case scenario? If it gets too much, someone will walk up and ask them to stop.

All I’m saying is, let’s not be hypocritical. Let’s give love a chance. Don’t sully it by calling it a shameful act, let the people be a judge of that. We have a constitutional right to expression, let it stand. Don’t shun those people into alleyways and seclusion, accept them in the open, and see their transformation. Our society would be a safer place to live. Each one knows his or her limits, it is only when you enforce bonds that a person will break them free, let him or her be free, and watch them rise!

Rediscovering Places in Town

2008-02-10T23:09:00.000+05:30

Baghdadi (Colaba)

This is a small restaurant, quite an old place, not flashy, simple to the point of being considered unworthy of entering, but the food is mind-blowing! Whatever gravy, meat you choose to eat, you must have the tandoori roti, it is as big as a plate it itself, and it's hot and soft. For those of you who're not familiar with this roti, typically even at the best of places, this roti (unless buttered) becomes hard and stretches like rubber the moment it is cold, but at this place, it stays soft forever! and trust me, if you don't have a great appetite, this one roti is more than enough for you! :) The chicken is tender, and it's cooked really well, all in all a great package deal!

Badshah Juice Centre (Crawford Market)

This place is very famous for their (obviously) juices, while I haven't tasted any, I've heard they're really good. But the other day I had the Royal Falooda here and I can't stop raving about it! It was awesome. Nothing unnecessary in it, no rubbish essence and all, it was just perfect, yummy sabja, rose syrup, sevainya, milk, ice cream... :) a must have for the falooda enthusiasts!

The Time is Now!

2008-02-10T18:35:00.000+05:30

Dreaming of pastures and the open skies,
Wondering when I'll have the time to fly,
An outlet for my energy I seek,
A fresh breath of freedom I breathe,

Struggling amidst the chaos to break free,
Getting entwined in the bonds, I feel,
Patience, peace and solitude I want,
Not hurried times and a mind wrought with thoughts,

Like a drain that eats into my time,
Usurps my creativity, my shrine,
The clear blue skies,
The cold hitting breeze,
awaken me, within me,

Hearing my own sound,
speak within me,
I ask for calmness and silence I receive,
"The calmness is within you, you are who you seek"

Sitting with myself I now realise,
an organised plan never wins the prize,
dealing with things the way they come,
responding and not reacting is the saying to hum,

Peace, quiet, calm, now,
Think, feel and act,
The time is now,
Fear, now not.

Say Cheese!

2008-02-04T22:58:00.000+05:30

We had a photo shoot in college today, organised by the Annual Magazine Committee for publishing in our college magazine, it's amazing to realise that this is my last year in college, and I was once part of the team that organised this event and today, it's my chance to sit with my batch and get our picture clicked which will be one of the images, that we carry with us on our journey...

The entire album can be viewed here...

Kala Ghoda Festival

2008-02-03T22:48:00.000+05:30

Last year I'd written about my experience of the festival, and today as I went for this festival, there're host of other things that I've explored! I went to see the festival and the nearby places, with a friend of mine, and the glimpses of our visit are here!

A few shots of what caught my eye, and some amazing work done by the artists. As I walked down the road towards Colaba, we saw a couple of artists painting a building, sitting on the sidewalk, just to watch them paint like that was exhilirating to say the least! Then we walked towards the festival and saw these artists painting on canvases, I've managed to grab a few shots of the paintings that he'd just done and I think they're amazing!

The festival itself was full of people, food stalls, artefacts, ranging from furniture, to showpieces, chappals, bags, books, greeting cards, and the likes. There were a lot of NGOs who'd set up stalls to generate awareness as also to publicise their range of products, the proceeds of which would help them in their efforts.

A couple of performances were taking places, however, unlike last time, where I'd seen Sandip Soparrkar perform with his troupe, this time, I didn't manage to see any such performance!

Well, maybe, I'll go there again, sometime this week!

Taare Zameen Par

2008-02-02T23:12:00.000+05:30

One of the most talked about movies, one that I saw a month later than most...

It's a movie, that introduces a sensitive issue to all, one for which there is no awareness, that of dyslexia.

A simple story line, revolving around the life of a 9 year old boy, a character beautifully essayed by Darsheel, who has a learning disability that no one diagnoses. He's tormented and hurt by friends, school teachers and most of all by his own father. His mother and brother, try to support him, but without knowledge of his problem, they too are unable to understand him. Shunned into a boarding school, where he faces the same opprobrium, he is lost, unhappy and terribly hurt, when he meets his temporary art teacher, played by aamir khan, who diagnoses his problem and strives to help him.

Through creative methods, songs, and most importantly by allowing him to express himself through his wonderful drawings, darshan soon transforms into a boy who's comfortable with himself. Knowing what he has, and understanding how to overcome his problems, he finds a new joy in pursuing his love of painting, and this converts him to being a happy, and comfortable child.

Beautiful paintings, some soulful songs, and awesome performance are the highlights of the movie. As correctly pointed out by a couple of my friends, it would have been better, had the movie shown more about the transformation and the results, rather than sole-heartedly focussing on the problems and the ill-treatment.

But all in all, a movie that you should see, for those who connect to the situation in some way or the other, it's really the sort of thing that brings you to terms with certain issues, and helps you to understand wholly it's implications.

If you're lost, I'm talking about the education system, and the fallacy in believing that academic excellence is the only measure of success. This basic thought that is so ingrained in the minds of our parents, our teachers permeates in a filtered manner to the students, making them believe that if they're not good at academics then they are not fit to survive in the world. Having such a negative approach to education and growth, it is really right to say that all the genuises and all the people who've succeeded, have done so in spite of the system, not because of.

I hope that you shall see this movie, not for anything else, but for the fact that it will make you sit up and think.

Proactiveness

2008-01-31T21:59:00.000+05:30

Take charge of your own things, no one else will do it for you.

I suffered from lack of proactiveness on my part, and I'm going to literally have to pay for it.

Rs. 1,000/- for not having submitted my CET form in time, a literal way to show that you got to take charge.

Well, life, I'm now listening!

Contextual Spelling

2008-01-30T22:43:00.000+05:30

Noticing spelling errors and typing errors is instinctual to me, and just today I was reading this form of Maharashtra CET and there was an error about filling the form given "bellow"

The word mentioned above is a correctly spelt word but is incorrect within the context, and so I was wondering, I wish Microsoft had contextual spelling!

When I came home today, I logged into google and checked for contextual spelling in microsoft office 2007 and it did!

I hope this software once available to all, will help in minimising the erroneous publications.

The chugging joy

2008-01-30T22:09:00.000+05:30

There's nothing so comforting as the sound of the train wheels gliding on its rails,
The pace, the slight noisy chugging, not of the steam engines but of the engine running on electricity,
The changing landscaprs, trees interspersed with habitation, slum dwellers having houses stacked up on one another, garbade dumps and huge skyscrapers striving to live up to their name,

The movement of compartments which have a slight sway,
speeding across their rails,
held together by the energy that binds us together,

There's group, that was featured in the news recently, IRFCA , Indian Railways Fan Club. This group is very knowledgable about their passion for the love of the Indian Railways, and are present at most unusual sightings for engines, locals, long distance trains, etc.

What is it about the railways that so many people literally 23 million each day use this mode of transport to commute to work, schools, colleges amongst most purposes. Apart from being the cheapest, quickest, and most convenient option, it is the routine and comfort that endear it to most. People do not realise how much a part of their routine this journey has become.

For many this journer is the time of the day where they and connect, share and commune with themselves and others. Rituals such as singing songs together, sharing stories, comparing notes, or even for grabbing a wink are part and parcel of the daily commute.

It is the practice of such a daily routine that make this chugging, long, speedy mode of transport a favorite among most, especially mine.

Questions and Answers

2008-01-28T00:17:00.000+05:30

Since childhood, I've heard my mother say this to me very often, Don't ask me questions, Do it because I say so!

It was my father who always told me, Keep asking questions till you're satisfied with the answer. Obviously referring to being satisfied as in being satisfied that your curiousity is justified.

This being the base, I set off on my journey... Somewhere I lost track and then now have taken up that path again.

Intelligence is not only about giving the right answers, it's about asking the right questions too.

We tend to overlook this aspect almost completely, until realisation dawns upon us.

Why don't people ask questions then? Does it mean that they're not curious about anything? Does it reflect their attitudes towards things? Does it indicate their insecurity? Does it show their inability to handle the responses? All this and more...

I think to begin asking questions, the primary base is that, you don't accept what's in front of you without thinking about it first? You challenge it, you explore it, you try to grasp it from various perspectives, and while doing all this you're questioning. Questioning yourself and probably others too.

The beauty lies in the fact, that you question and you answer it yourself, and the cycle continues till you find the answer that quenches your thirst, and then it's a matter of your next question!

Rajasthan Memoirs

2008-01-28T00:01:00.001+05:30

Since I'll be writing a book, I won't be delving into too many details here...

This is just short poem on my trip to Rajasthan:

A journey began amidst the darkness,
spiralling into the night,
reaching out to the dawn,
and landing within the lawns,

A land known for it's deserts,
was pleasantly filled with green fields,
bustling with yellow flowers,
and tall proud trees to guard it's sheen,

We rode to three cities,
namely, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer,
bore witness to the magnificent forts,
rising above all humanity,

The grandeur, the affluence, and the power,
yielded immense possibilities,
the exhibitions and converted musuems,
brought us down to reality,

upfront with the barbaric times,
of hundred wives and heinous crimes,
the expansive armour and weaponery,
formed a part of the revellery,

from the huge forts, we entered the havelis,
built for no royals but for the tradesmen,
and yet we were surprised to see,
the attention paid to the intricacies,

having elaborate meals every few hours,
staying in the loveliest of locales,
it was like living in the lap of luxury!

for the finale we had it all planned,
a trip into the thar sands,
however, they got a tad bit changed,
as at the last moment, it rained!

in the middle of a desert, we're in for a drizzle,
not too harsh, yet enough to dampen the sands,
unable to roll in the sand,
we enjoyed our rides, with the reins of the camels in hand,

soon it was time to pack and leave,
another journey, returning home,
via bus and then via air,
to embrace our city, for it's our own...

Kalewade!

2008-01-12T00:10:00.001+05:30

The Group Snap!

Sitting (1st Row) (l - r) Cord, Malika, Rahul, Meera (in his lap), Meha

Sitting (2nd Row) (l - r) Akhtar, Pradnya, Geeta, Aaji, Pramod, Priya, Arjun

Standing (l - r) Sandeep, Lambert, Anuja, Sonali, Ayesha, Rupali, Uma, Jennifer, Gauri and Pankaj

From all over the world,
We all came together,
at a lovely place,
I'd like to call Kalewade!

Three days of absolute bliss,
we spent doing lots of things,
from elaborate meals literally every two hours,
to dances and games of cards,

The stars were glittering all night,
with all the performers shining bright,
Sonali with her lovely voice,
mesmerized all of us in sight,

the kids put up a great show,
Arjun at the helm and malika, rohan, rahul and meha in tow,
and then suddenly, we had a spurt!
where rohan completely stole the show!

and soon opened the bag of stories,
with everyone joining in to share their bits,
anuja with her elephant memory won the bet,
while I was completely awestruck with them!

to imagine the pranks and the things that you'll did,
seems so amazing that i'm still smiling!
what a riot you'll must have been,
and what great fun it all must have been,

just listening to all that had happened,
and then revelling in all that we did,
dancing till it was late into the night,
and singing like there was no end to that time,

all that music and all the fun,
we all sure did have a great time!

our short trip into wai,
was interesting and unique it it's own right,
the musty old wood house smell,
coupled with the peaceful shell,

the sounds resonating within the temple,
and the bell clanging in tandem,

and soon it was time to head back and pack,
the three days were heading to a wrap,
a little bit of agraha and soon we were off,
to an extended vacation for all!

then we all were together again,
at just another venue!
dinners, parties and new years,
with more and more shopping goods!

so many more things to mention,
it's just going to be a while,
the amazing effort and planning that went into it,
led to a seamless smooth vacation trip,

so here's a big thank you to you all;

Aaji, for spearheading all of us and for all the things that you've taught us,
Priya and Pramod Mama, for the planning and execution,
Aai and Papa, for doing so much!
All the cousins for everything that we all did, the cards, the dances, (boy am already missing dard-e-disco and om shanti om!)
All the kids (gosh my nephews and nieces!) for that lovely performance... We all loved that immensely!

Lots of love!!

Solutions for Safer Festivals

2007-12-23T21:51:00.000+05:30

My friend said, it doesn't make sense to write and "crib" about the problems that festivals create without offering solutions in return. Justified.

So here goes,

Festivals in Bombay are definitely many, being a secular city we're bound to celebrate all the festivals associated with the various religions in our city, we'll have Ganesh Utsav, Diwali, Durga Puja, Id, Christmas, and so on... Political parties aiming to be projected as the party for everyone will support these festivals to gain a double whammy, political mileage and votes. People will accept their support because they too have a justifiable desire to celebrate!

How do we, ensure that amidst this chaos, we prevent damage to our environment?

Let's start with the resources used to erect these festivals, Mandals are created, Idols are sculpted, Flower Garlands are utilised, Colours (or rang/gulal), Crackers, Diyas, Lanterns and now so often used the electric versions of lights and the likes. What does the maximum damage?
The various facets affected are, the water bodies - due to the immersion of idols and the colours and the flowers, the people - due to the noise, crackers, traffic, etc.

I've found some links on various views of other people about the same issue, and I've found this person's view to be quite concise and helpful. Simple Solutions to the Problems which will help the community in both ways!

The Problem

Traditionally, clay was used to make Ganesh idols. Over the years however, plaster of Paris (POP), which is lighter and cheaper, has become the favoured material to mould these idols. POP contains chemicals such as gypsum, sulphur, phosphorus, and magnesium. The dyes used to colour these idols contain mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead, and carbon. Plastic and thermocol accessories are used to decorate these idols. Such materials are not biodegradable, hence are toxic. Also, while earlier the idols were quite small, today a spirit of competitiveness pervades the celebrations, so that the idols are becoming increasingly colossal. The immersion of idols made from non-biodegradable or toxic materials has the following environmental repercussions:

With the immersion of these idols in the sea or inland water bodies such as lakes and streams, the chemicals in these idols dissolve in the water. POP dissolves slowly, gradually releasing its harmful components. The water experiences a rise in acidity as well as traces of heavy metal. The toxic waste kills plant and animal life in the water. In Mumbai, for instance, dead fish washed ashore after the immersion is a common occurrence.

Plastic and thermocol waste, including polythene bags containing offerings, is usually immersed with the idols. Because it is non-biodegradable—meaning that it does not decompose—this waste simply keeps adding up. It also obstructs the flow of streams, leading to flooding during the rains. Running water, when obstructed, turns stagnant. This can become a breeding ground for diseases and is a major health hazard for a locality.

People who use water polluted by these immersions experience a host of health problems such as infections of the lungs, and diseases of the skin, blood, and eyes.

The Solution

There are ways to reduce the environmental damage from Ganpati celebrations:

Avoid the use of idols made from POP. Always go for those made of unbaked natural clay, natural fibre, or even recycled paper. Ensure that the dyes used to colour the idols are organic or vegetable in origin. Some years ago, natural clay idols were not always easy to get and had to be specially ordered. Today, however, many volunteer organisations make and sell these environmentally safe idols and encourage people to use them.

Do not use thermocol or plastic as decorations or accessories for your Ganpati idol. Instead, use cloth, wood, paper, and other natural materials that are safer when immersed in water.

Immerse the idol in a tub or a tank specially made for the purpose. Later, you can discard the water by pouring it into your garden.

If there is an artificial tank in your area specifically created for immersion purposes, use this instead of a natural source of water such as a lake or a stream.

Some people use a metal or stone idol. They symbolically immerse this in a bucket of water, or even carry it in procession to the sea, hold it under the water, and then bring it back home.

Collect offerings of flowers and other organic material and put them in a compost pit. These can be used to fertilise your garden. If you must immerse them, wrap them in newspapers instead of polythene bags.

Song and dance are an integral part of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. However, ear-splitting decibels are not just disturbing, but a major health hazard. Moderation is the key to a safe and enjoyable Ganesh Chaturthi

These solutions would go a long way in helping change people's attitude towards festivals, it's not the stopping of people's celebration that I'm asking for, it's a change in terms of the manner of the celebration!

The political powerplay and motives involved, will undoubtedly continue to plague these issues, hence the people need to be made aware about the various implications of their actions so that they're better informed while they make their decisions.

In her memory

2007-12-21T21:50:00.000+05:30

have you ever had a pet? I do... I lost my dog today in an accident in the elevator, by the time we rescued her, she had already died...

it made me stop and think, about the multitude of things that we do, and the pace at which we work. made me realise the importance of slowing down the pace, because these moments that we live are precious.

a beautiful dog she was.. when she was a pup, we'd brought her home from the streets, she was a tiny little thing, only 6 inches long and could barely walk straight.. her eyes hadn't opened yet, obviously the gardener had snatched her away from her mother while she was still weening. when she grew, she loved to sit at our window sill and bark away to glory.. thinking about it, makes me smile now...

she was so tiny, she would slip under my divan which was barely 6 inches high, and she'd curl up there and sleep.. the first time she did that, we had no idea where she was, and it was crazy trying to search for her, the small thing that she was.. all around the building, in the garden, everywhere we searched for her... and not finding her anywhere, when we searched in the corner of the bed, and found her sleeping... it was a moment to remember...

the first night she slept beside me, and she curled up against my stomach and fell asleep...

the time we shifted houses... throughout everything, she was the loyal, loving pet that we were proud of.. we used to get so upset on her for her loud barks, but she always forgot them and loved us in return... she never held any grudge against us... every day, even if we stepped out of the house for a mere ten-fifteen minutes, she'd be so glad to see us return, prancing about, swishing her tail, she was genuinely always pleased to see us back! never upset that we'd left her alone and gone...

and then when she became a mother, and gave birth to a litter of 3 pups, it was wonderful! of course the tiresome cleaning became routine in a while, but those moments of touching those balls of fur, as the pups used to feel, are moments to be treasured...

one of her pups, honey, we kept with us... and she's a boon to us now.. helping us deal with the loss of her mother, chintu... she's probably understood what's happened even better than we ever would, but then probably she just thinks that she's gone out of the house... she hasn't started behaving differently as yet, and we're trying to ensure that she's not left alone for at least a week from now...

writing this down is almsot thereaputic, as i lessen my pain, and give it an outlet...

i'll repeat what my friend said, "don't think about how she died, think about the life she lived" and this is precisely what i've just done.. thought and wrote in her memory, the times that we shared, and loved. I love you Chintu...

j'attend (awaiting)

2007-12-17T22:39:00.000+05:30

the ups and downs,
the lull after the storm,
the wave tha recalcitrates,
only to unleash again...

the building up tension,
and the mounting desire,
the subsided understanding,
the silent wait...

the knowing of the present,
the acceptance of the time,
the wait to steer the sail,
in sight of the wind's tail..

each moment, each day,
brings back every second,
all those times that went by,
and all the times that we will...

Understanding "I"

2007-12-14T00:24:00.000+05:30

Stepping into a new place, be it an institution, a workplace, or just another group of people, we all are very receptive about the perceptions that we create in the minds of people. Most often, the perceptions that people have about us are based on what they feel when they’re around us.

Through my school life, I never noticed anything awkward or different about people’s perception towards me. In college, things were different.

I still remember the moments when I walked into a class, and introduced myself to everyone, and then slowly got around to knowing people and then becoming close friends with a group of them. After the initial months had passed, when we embarked on a casual conversation about what we all had thought of each other at first, I was surprised to hear, that everyone had perceived that I had lots of “attitude.”

Back then, having “attitude” was misconstrued by me as being “bad”. I’m sure many still make that mistake.

Let’s define what we mean by attitude first, attitude is the way I deal with people, with things and with life. It’s conveyed in the forms of my communication, my posture, my ideas and my words. Attitude is about being me. Now who is this me? That is the core to our thought process. Attitude is used most often as a synonym of arrogance, which is a logical and expressional fallacy.

The journey of beginning to define the “I” in my life is probably one of the most interesting and challenging journeys that I’ve had, answering questions which form the base to my actions, thoughts and emotions. One may ask, “Why do I want to do this?” “What do I want to do?” “Who am I?” and I speak from experience when I say that the joy of the realization that your life is yours to decide and that the choices are yours to make and that you will face the consequences of your own actions! Ah! It’s magic!

Maslow had a theory called the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’; He said that each of us have different stages of needs: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Self-Esteem and Self-Actualization. The fifth stage of self-actualization which people compare to being spiritually inclined is what I’m talking about. Parallel with the Buddhist way of thought, it’s a feeling of enlightenment from within, of realizing your own true skills and utilizing them to achieve your every step.

Remember the time in your childhood when you thought you could fly? I remember the time I actually tried and fell, today I know, it wasn’t a fruitless attempt, because I have flown into the skies and had some falls, but kept going on, for no other reason other than the burning desire to go on.

So what is self-development? I’d say, Self Development is about understanding yourself, by prioritizing your passions, building up the skills which will take you there, and then, just go! Let go of the inhibitions. Don’t try to control, just let go of yourself completely and pursue your dreams with your passion!

On the threshold of a leap

2007-11-25T14:05:00.000+05:30

[A journey of words through the times that I’ve spent in this institution, from AMAG and then BMS, making many friends, to finding a person that I am, an individual, proud to be.]

Five years, it’s been five years since a curious, shy girl that was me entered the premises of this building for the first time. Everything was for a first time, each step an achievement.

The moments move past me in a blur, a rapid sequence of still shots, moments of, jumping into the train for the first time, running down the corridors, voicing those opinions, etching those first words, growing up within these walls, only to learn how to fly, how to rise beyond the limits and blossom in the blue sky.

A period of time enmeshed with emotions and filled with events, from friendships to crushes, from authority to responsibility, from the unknown to the widely known, from J.C. to T.Y., a journey in which I have grown.

A quest for realization, a journey of knowledge, experiencing everything, the emotions, and the incidents and bearing the consequences. Amidst the events a desire to find yourself, to encapsulate that knowledge and to burst forth with passion. These very words that flow weren’t so smooth before. They were thoughts like the vapour now condensed onto the paper. Dew drops on the leaves, the first rays of the sun, the pink glow of the sunset, and the light of the dawn.

The time that is now a memory, the moments that have now passed, the jubilation that rises and along with it comes the pain of the separation. For those who don’t feel the pain, it’s just been a building, those who never gave anything to it, those who never learned, those who never felt, those who never rose, those who are moving like zombies, untouched and indifferent, nothing will ever matter to them, for nothing ever has.

The people who were involved in those clandestine plans, the sub-rose meetings and those hush-hush clans, for them it was the excitement, the thrill of thwarting the norms, the vanity of self where there was no self at all.

The intellectual, rather studious minds that grew, absorbing all that was around, using the resources they had, and achieving what they can.

These walls, those charts, the paints and that jari, the words, the layouts, the texture and the money, the thoughts, the voices, the struggles and the joy, few words to describe the society that was mine. The affirmation to that group, the journey of the truth, the realization of my abilities, and the fruit of my labour. Guided and co-coordinated with a dedication that matched mine, a mind that created what I visualized, the effect of seeing our output never fails to give us the joy, the also reminds us of the struggles we had, to fly. The committee that faithfully records a picturesque memory, the book that carries an imprint of those times, the book that we created to commemorate our souls.

The joyful revelry, the festive time, the chaotic confusion and the mayhem enfolds. Colours, people and charts all about, one asking you to perform, the others belong, choices and tension that spared no one, the run-u to the event, and in mid December we celebrate the “organized chaos” event!

An elite group rising within, emboldened by their sheer spirits, working within their constraints, yet always striving to win. The group of people where I belonged, where I learned and grew in thought, the odds were against us, but never did we fail to win. Organizing events, making presentations, having fun and loving life, are just some of the facets that I can attribute to us.

The colours of life, the experiences that make me, the thoughts that guide me, have brought me to this threshold where I will now go and face this world with everything that I behold. The journey of college life in Sydenham draws to a close, but the memories remain imprinted deep within my soul. Adieu and au revoir dear college, a deep wish have I, to see you regain your glory, and I will till the time I’m here, play my part in the story.

Flight into the sky

2007-11-25T14:03:00.000+05:30

As I stand before you today,

Birds of a kind; together,

Ruffling our wings,

In anticipation of flight,

The moments that we’ve shared,

The times that we’ve spent,

All making us, who we are,

To realize the finality of it all,

To stand alone,

To stand tall,

We take our first step,

Into the horizons beyond,

And face the world that is,

Beckoning for us to belong,

We wait, we think, we decide,

And raise our hands up in the sky,

And take off into the wind,

Only to rise, only to win,

Struggles and hardships we will face,

But what’s success without that pain,

We will win, we will fly,

Our dreams and aspirations in the sky

Jab We Met

2007-11-21T14:15:00.000+05:30

Gay exuberance, joie de vivre, and lots of fresh energy! :)

A fun romantic comedy, with a lot of natural acting and chemistry between the two actors on screen..

Simple enough storyline, well depicted mostly.. the only negative aspect were the songs.. Only two of them were slightly acceptable, hummable.. but the rest were a complete misfit. The voice of the singer was utterly unsuitable for Shahid and the beats were complete disco beats which just didn't gel with the ambience and context of the scene, I mean imagine, Shahid's been asked to sing a song in front of her entire (huge) family and he starts singing a song (the name of which i've already forgotten and had to google to find, and the name's hilarious! nagada nagada!! :) ) and this song is bhangra mix with disco beats.. i'm sure it's popular in the discos already, who knows!

nevertheless, the characters were pretty well etched, dialogues were easy flowing and quite casual, scenes and picturisations were fairly well mingled, although there were a few scenes that irked me.. :) there was this one scene where they're travelling in a car from one station to another, and shahid takes the wheel (the cab driver being far too slow) the cliche, whether purposely done or not, i'm not sure, was that this was shot in a studio... the typical olden time thing, show only the car moving from side to side, with scenes moving in the background and sound playing! and what's worse, they even used miniature models for all the train and car sequences at that point of time!! really poor decision, cause it's definitely not believable that it was meant to be a spoof, and it was very poorly done, it was that appalling obvious! :)

i particularly enjoyed a few shots of them dancing in the rain, some lovely sunset & sunrise shots with trees in the foreground, jumping off a ramp into the lake, her running on the station, and their conversation in the moonlight, shadows playing on the terrace of her huge home in Bhatinda, Punjab. :)

Her name was Geet, and contrary to expectation, there wasn't even one song in which she sung! at least i'm unable to recollect any! :)

So if you want to enjoy yourself for 2 1/2 hours with a romantic comedy, you could definitely go for this! :)

examinations

2007-11-12T20:32:00.000+05:30

the mere thought of it makes me smile,
the transition of my fears now nowhere in sight,

what makes people fear a test,
that you don't have what it takes to clear the rest?

or is it the same like being asked a question,
being shaken out of the world of fiction,

being asked to reason out your feelings,
being asked to have justifications,

the numbers that seemed so incongrous,
the words that seemed to escape my conscious,

are now like drops in the ocean,
the one i steer with my emotions,

the intent and passion that i previously felt,
is now more of compulsion for myself,

the excitement of wanting to state my point of view,
is merging into the seas of views,

trying to mould an answer like it should be,
is like asking your mind to think differently,

not innovative or even creative,
but restricted and unnecessarily extended,

it's a game that i used to play very well,
but this time i don't think i will gel,

i've had my way, i've taken my time,
i've done what i wanted and made my choice,

the game's still the same, the rules still apply,
the change is in me, and i will still fly!

in my own way, in my own style,
for no one but me, for I am I!